


New York Rage

by Theblazingwolf1



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theblazingwolf1/pseuds/Theblazingwolf1
Summary: When a Barbarian is thrown into the UnSleeping City what will happen find out here intrepid heroes





	New York Rage

Brennan: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Dimension 20-- The Unsleeping City.  
Emily, Siobhan, and Ally: [clapping and cheering]  
Brennan: My name is Brennan Lee Mulligan. I'll be running this game for our wonderful cast of players. Say hi, intrepid heroes.  
All: [in unison] Hi, intrepid heroes.  
Siobhan: Brennan loves this bit.  
Brennan: I love this fucking bit. I can't lie. Reintroducing our old friends-- Mr. Zac Oyama.  
Zac: Hello.  
Brennan: Emily Axford.  
Emily: Ya-Hi.  
Brennan: Lou Wilson.  
Lou: [hammy] Uh, hey.  
Brennan: Siobhan Thompson.  
Siobhan: [more hammy] Bleh-- ?  
Brennan: Brian Murphy.  
Murph: [even more hammy] Hey.  
Brennan: Ally Beardsley.  
Ally: [deadpan] Hey.  
Brennan: And our new Guest Gavin Jones.  
Gavin: [Shyly] Hello  
Brennan: Wonderful. Well, I'm going to go ahead and start to bring us to this new land of myth and magic that might seem eerily familiar to some of our viewers at home. It is a snowy, blustery day. Cold, crisp, clear skies over the [thick New York accent] best fucking skyline of any city that has ever been or will ever be. It is New York City, baby. [regular voice] Snow flurries from the sky as the wind kicks up. We see gusts of freezing air blow past the Chrysler Building, down through streets of honking cabs--  
Pedestrian: Hey, I'm walking here.  
Brennan: And just looking miserable looking pedestrians, who crowd into the tunnels of the subways pack. All of a sudden, their winter coats trapping them in boxes of body odor and heat stuffed together on their morning commute. Down through the tunnels, a blast of laundry mixed with hot garbage and the sweet smell of the hot nuts stands. [sirens]  
We go through the hellish wasteland in Times Square, up, up following snow again, over the bridge-- Brooklyn Bridge-- right here, through neighborhoods where families tuck their little bundled infants through strollers and walk down little lanes of trees. Back through neighborhoods, where, again, little corner stores sell hot bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches to morning commuters.  
[New York accent] A bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, the best thing you ever fucking ate. It cost what? $2.50? $2.25? That's a deal.  
Brennan: [regular voice] We follow the wind and it's early to mid-December morning in New York City. A city where so many people dream of coming and making a life for themselves. And it's always felt a little bit like maybe, just around the corner, there's a little bit of magic. I'm going to go ahead and roll to see which of our PCs will go first. [rolls die] Hee hee!  
We follow a little whisk of snow all the way down, up through Williamsburg where the hipsters still dwell, but mostly the rich people that have now come and displaced those hipsters. And we arrive in a little neighborhood called Greenpoint, which is still an area of bars and partying. There's, like, rooftop places that have now been shuttered up for the winter, or those few tenacious places that have those insane heating lamps up so people can still be on a rooftop bar in fucking mid-December.  
And we go very close to the water. There is a dingy little doctor’s office. This doctor's office might not be super accredited, and it might not even be billed or listed as necessarily a doctor's office. It's kind of in a corner of a warehouse, way down by the water. And the snow settles on a windowsill. And in a dingy, little, medical office, we see our friend Pete the Plug. Ally, could you go ahead and describe your character for the group?  
Ally: Yeah, I'm Pete. Just let me know what you're trying to track down because I'm sure I can get it. I sell everything and I personally take even more. [laughs] There is not an errand I can't run after a fistful of mushrooms.  
Brennan: What does Pete look like? What's Pete wearing?  
Ally: Pete looks almost exactly like Hunter S. Thompson, only young. It's like, I'm wearing a cowboy hat. I got on shades, the yellow shades because they're helping me with seasonal affective disorder right now. I am not doing well on the inside. I did go through a breakup. I did lose the one and she's thriving. [laughs sadly] But I'm gonna be OK. And it's cool that I found a doctor that is so cheap, I'm hoping.  
Brennan: Speaking of which, so Pete you are sitting on a little roll out paper on the thing. You've got the phone in your hand. This is your personal phone that actually has, like, smartphone apps. It's not your business phone.  
Ally: Got it.  
Brennan: And you're looking at your text history with Priya.  
Ally: [whispers] Of course I am.  
Brennan: It's not looking great. It's a big wall of you--  
Ally: Yeah.  
Brennan:-- with time stamps going back for a couple weeks.  
Ally: Yeah. I said "And one more thing…" a lot of times. I probably just should have started writing these things in a note and saving it to draft, but I didn't. And she just wrote back "OK."  
Brennan: Speaking of the doctor's office, the door opens up and Dr. Lugash Primijitzki walks in. Dr. Lugash is a very kind but intimidating looking guy. He is great, broad shouldered with these huge hairy arms that kind of goes down a little bit longer. Can you imagine? He looks like-- he's got like strangling hands. He has a bunch of tattoos of weird dragons wrapped around his arms. He's got Cyrillic lettering in them. You see he's got a white shirt with a black tie. No doctor's coat. He's got a big square jaw with a nose that got busted up in a bunch of boxing matches or something, salt and pepper hair kind of in a flop, but these extremely thick rimmed black glasses. So he looks, his eyes kind of are magnified a little bit in his head, which looks a little bit goofy.  
Dr. Lugash walks in. You've worked with Dr. Lugash for a while. Your supplier, Seven, recommended him to you. Dr. Lugash works with people who need medical help for cash and not on the books. You see that Dr. Lugash walks in with a little chart and goes:  
Lugash: [strong eastern European accent] OK, Peter, how's it going?  
Pete: Oh, it's good, man.  
Lugash: Yeah? You feeling all right? Your test results do not indicate that this is true.  
Pete: [mumbling] What do you mean?  
Lugash: Well, I'm looking here. I guess we'll start with the small stuff. Your vitamin levels are not great. What have you been eating recently?  
Pete: I found out, if you microwave cheese on a plate you can peel it off and then it's like a crispy-- like a crispy cracker.  
Lugash: Oh, boy. OK. You know you should not be eating just cheese, especially microwave. You thought-- you can't get-- you could go down to the corner store and get the microwave toaster. At least the cheese will be more crisp.  
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you're right. Yeah, I could probably eat a salad or something.  
Lugash: So, good news as well. It look like you're totally healed up from the top surgery, which is great. Congratulations.  
Pete: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm ready to fuck. [starts sobbing]  
Lugash: Oh, boy. OK, Pete. OK, Pete.  
Brennan: Yeah, you see that Lugash comes over and gingerly wraps his giant arms around you and pats you on the back of the head.  
Lugash: Peter--  
Ally: Peter is inconsolable. He's just weeping in his arms right now.  
Lugash: Hey, buddy. It's OK. Hey, it's hard. Tell Dr. Lugash what happened.  
Pete: Yeah, I know. It's fine. It's fine.  
Lugash: It's clearly not fine.  
Pete: Yeah. I'm just happy to be alive.  
Lugash: He pulls up a chair and sort of nods, knowingly and says--  
Ally: I'm reaching into my bag for a mushroom cap.  
Lugash: [sympathetically] Enemy gang find out where you live, now you have to move? Is that what's going on?  
Pete: Oh, no, actually, um-- [takes a mushroom]  
Lugash: [quickly] What you just eat? What did you just eat in your mouth?  
Pete: [muffled] A vegetable.  
Brennan: You see, he snags it, and then he says:  
Lugash: This hallucinogenic. Peter, you are on antipsychotic medication.  
Pete: Yeah, I know. That's why it's totally safe to do this.  
Lugash: Peter, I don’t--  
Pete: I can take as much psilocybin as I want. I've got the remedy.  
Lugash: Peter, when is the last time you slept?  
Pete: I haven't really been sleeping. Yeah, I have-- right before I'm about to fall asleep, if I think of something scary or sad, I just stay up and then all of a sudden, it's 5:40 AM, and it's like I might as well microwave some cheese and start my morning.  
Lugash: Peter, I'm going to just run through a checklist real quick here, if I can.  
Pete: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Doc.  
Lugash: You have not slept in a couple days. It's affecting your health. Sleep is most necessary part of recuperation. [Pete takes another mushroom] Don't take another mushroom. One, honestly, even for a good time, one is fine.  
Pete: [muffled] Yeah.  
Lugash: You are actively doing recreational drugs. You have not slept in days. You are on antipsychotic medication. You are also taking hormone treatment-- you're taking male hormones.  
Pete: Yeah.  
Lugash: So, this in the medical profession, we would say is a lot going on. Right?  
Pete: Mm-hmmm.  
Lugash: I don't think that is good for you. You need to-- I can't believe I'm going to say this. You need to find a way to get in touch with yourself because you are trying to medicate for a situation which medicine maybe cannot treat.  
Pete: I kind of get what you're saying. [takes another mushroom]  
Lugash: Maybe a therapist-- that's a third one!  
Brennan: You see Lugash slams a meaty hand into your back and one of them sort of pops out. He looks at you and goes:  
Lugash: Look, I'm going to go and try to get a stomach pump because you're going to straight up go insane if you process those mushrooms. I'm going to be right back.  
Pete: All right. Thank you.  
Brennan: Lugash leaves the room. Make a perception check for me, if you'd be so kind.  
Ally: Good. 17, plus, what else is perception? Oh, no, no addition. So 17.  
Brennan: You look up and you're just being annoyed because there's a drip in here. I mean, it's like a dingy old building. [sound of water dripping] You look over in the corner and you see it. There is a radiator, which is dripping a drop of water up and it's hitting the ceiling.  
Pete: Righteous.  
[eerie music]  
Brennan: You see that a puddle slowly starts to form on the ceiling of the water dripping out of the radiator. And in a reflection of that ceiling puddle. you see that there's a little New York Public Health poster on the wall. And the reflection of the healthy sporty guy in a park turns to look at you and says:  
Man in reflection: Hey, Pete.  
Brennan: The reflection in the ceiling goes,  
Man in reflection: How's it going? I'm real.  
Pete: It's going-- honestly, I feel like I can be really honest with you. I miss her, and I deleted her number out of my phone but then I found it in our early Instagram exchanges and I re-added it, and I've already texted her this morning.  
Man in reflection: OK. Magic's real. Everything's about to change for you.  
Pete: Do you think she read the text or do you think I should--  
Brennan: The door opens and you see Lugash comes back in.  
Pete: [looking up to ceiling] Hey, where'd you go?  
Lugash: OK, this is not great. Right? Peter, listen. Mostly what I do here is I pull bullets out of gangsters that have been shot. That's like my number one thing.  
Pete: In a way, I was kind of shot.  
Lugash: Not really.  
Pete: I shot my tits off.  
[cast laughing]  
Lugash: I will admit-- I will admit it was my first time doing top surgery.  
Pete: You did a great job. I don't think you left that much stuff in there that you shouldn't have. It's a little bit bumpy on this side, but I think it's kind of cool.  
Lugash: Well, I am very excited to do it. You might imagine, there's not a lot in my line of work. There is not a chance to prove I am LGBT ally, so it's nice to be able to do that.  
Pete: Yeah.  
Lugash: I am worried about you. You need to get rest.  
Pete: OK, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  
Lugash: You need to heal. Be careful out there today. Oh, remember, by the way, I would say go get rest because also it's going to be a crazy day for you, right? Because SantaCon is happening today, right?  
Pete: Aw, fuck. Yeah, you're right and they're going to want a lot of cocaine.  
Lugash: Are people still doing a lot of cocai--  
Pete: Just the Santas. They're stuck in the 90s.  
Lugash: Oh, these are mostly people from Hoboken.  
Pete: Exactly, exactly.  
Lugash: It's like 10 years in the past over on that side of the river.  
Pete: Yeah.  
Lugash: What you going to do? All right. Well, listen. One of my clients has just gotten into a violent car accident, so I need to go make a house call. Be safe, Peter.  
Pete: Yeah. Thank you so much, Doctor. I'll see you.  
Brennan: He nods.  
Siobhan: What a great doctor.  
Brennan: Yes, you head out. As you can see, the yearly clusterfuck that is SantaCon, where a bunch of college kids dress up in Santa outfits and go on a crazy pub crawl and make New York virtually unlivable for a day has already begun. I imagine you just head back to your apartment at this point.  
Ally: Definitely, yeah. Back to bed.  
Brennan: Cool. You get back to your apartment. On the train-- what do you think Pete's doing on the train as he's going? It's an above ground train a little bit, getting away from there.  
Ally: I'm just listening to music. Probably listening to an old Lil Wayne album.  
Brennan: Little text pops up on your work phone from Seven saying "Price of the brick went up. LOL."  
Pete: Fuck.  
Ally: OK. Yeah. I say, "Yeah. We'll take care of it."  
Brennan: You arrive back at your apartment, a little bit deeper into Greenpoint. Go and make another perception check for me.  
Ally: 11.  
Brennan: You walk up to the apartment. You live in a spare room that is functionally a converted walk-in closet. You walk into the apartment and see Marta, who is this very old 60s, 70s Polish woman-- she's got a little babushka around her head-- and her early 20s grandson Jagdash. He's got a chin strap beard, very thick eyebrows. He's got a windbreaker. He's a wannabe gangster guy. You walk into the apartment and you see that a bunch of your stuff is in boxes.  
Pete: Shit.  
Brennan: Marta turns around.  
Marta: [Polish accent] OK, so. I got-- I found proof.  
Brennan: And you see she takes a weird little plastic bag that's empty.  
Marta: I know what this is. You deal drugs out of apartment?  
Pete: What? No. No. What are you talking about?  
Marta: You are a bad boy, Chicka. You do this?  
Pete: No. No. That is from a pen. That's dry ink from a pen. They do that now, here.  
Marta: [unconvinced] Dry ink from pen? You are drug dealer, all right? You scurry around--  
Pete: [exclaiming] I work at the school!  
Marta: What you do? You wear a cowboy hat.  
Pete: I work at the school. [reaches into coat and takes another mushroom]  
Marta: No. I see you with drug from your coat right there.  
Pete: That was a snack!  
Marta: You are a bad influence on Jagdash!  
Pete: What are you talking about? No. Jagdash? Jagdash, look, I work at the school, right, man?  
Brennan: You see Jagdash looks at you and goes:  
Jagdash: [confused] I thought you were drug dealer.  
Pete: No. No. Remember the point is how much of not a drug dealer I am.  
Jagdash: But I'm supposed to buy drugs from you later for a party!  
Pete: No.  
Jagdash: We're going to club.  
Pete: I don't-- are you hearing him say all this? She's not mad at you.  
Marta: My sweet grandson Jagdash would never! [cradles his head] He would never do this.  
Pete: Look. I don't sell drugs. I promise.  
Marta: I find out you're-- I find out from this that you are bad-- I know you are up to no good because you come in, you have the crazy hair, and you have the cowboy hat--  
Pete: This is just my hair.  
Marta: You crazy, boy.  
Pete: No.  
Marta: So now you're going to be out on the street.  
Pete: No. No. Come on.  
Marta: Your father is here.  
Pete: What?  
Brennan: You haven't seen your father in six years or something like that, and you hear a set of footsteps walking off this-- walking up the stairs.  
Pete: What?  
Brennan: The door opens and you see your dad, Mitch, standing in the doorway.  
Pete: What the fuck? Mitch, what are you doing here?  
Mitch: [gruff voice] You’re gonna call me Mitch? OK.  
Pete: Yeah, I am.  
Brennan: Your dad has not seen you in so long.  
Pete: Fuck.  
Mitch: I had a hard time finding you.  
Brennan: He goes, picks up one of the boxes of your stuff, and starts to carry it down the stairs. And it has a special box of yours in it that you definitely need.  
Pete: OK. Hey, put that down. Put it-- come on. What is going on?  
Brennan: He just continues down.  
Ally: I follow him.  
Brennan: He goes down the steps and he’s like,  
Mitch: Well, eventually, we had to pay a private eye to track you down.  
Pete: How did they find me? I don't-- what? No way.  
Mitch: What do you mean, no way?  
Pete: I'm too good. No one can find me. What are you talking about?  
Brennan: You see your dad turns around. He's not really making eye contact with you. It's super weird and fucked up. Turns around and says,  
Mitch: We knew you had to be in New York. We knew you weren't-- you know, left upstate dropped out of school. We want you to come home. OK?  
Pete: No.  
Mitch: What's so great about this place? I saw a bunch of bums driving on the way in. It's dirty as hell.  
Pete: Yeah. Exactly! I can't go and live on a farm where there's-- I'm the only trans person anyone's ever met in their lives.  
Mitch: That's-- OK. [waves hands] I-- I don't want to talk about that, all right?  
Pete: You're doing the weird chicken dance that you do whenever--  
Brennan: You see he looks at you. You start to feel something weird as emotions kick up and-- that feeling of going over a bump in a road really fast where your stomach starts to rise and you feel a little bit weightless is starting to happen to you a little bit.  
Ally: Cool.  
Brennan: You see that he looks at you and goes:

Mitch: It's not a fucking conversation.  
Brennan: He goes to say your deadname. And he goes-- [sound of bubbles in water]-- and a bunch of bubbles come out of his mouth and he starts looking around. And just tons of bubbles are issuing out of him. And they go into his clothes and around him and start lifting him up into the air as he flails his arms. And your dad is surrounded by bubbles and sails off into the sky. [whirling wind]  
Ally: Fuck yeah. I grab my box, I go back inside and try to live there.  
Murph: End of campaign.  
Brennan: You take a step in. As you take a step i, you're feeling fucking-- you've never had a high like this before. You bump into someone and you hear them say,  
Stranger: [thick, gruff New York accent] Hey, watch it, asshole.  
Brennan: You turn around and a trash can with two little eyeballs on top flaps its lid and goes,  
Trash can: What’s your fucking problem? I was standing right here by the doorway. What are you, some kind of piece of shit?  
Pete: OK. I need to take an upper.  
Brennan: You see two of the other trash cans turn around and say:  
Second trash can: Oh, what, is this guy fucking bothering you, dude?  
First trash can: I don't know. You trying to start some fucking trouble?  
Pete: No.  
Second trash can: If we weren't already outside, I'd ask you, you want to go outside?  
Pete: No, man. You're just a trash can.  
First trash can: Oh, I'm just a trash can.  
Pete: You're just a trash can--  
First trash can: And you're just a piece of shit. Kids like you move into the fucking neighborhood, you sell drugs, you make crime happen. You're a real piece of shit, buddy.  
Ally: I run.  
Brennan: You take off down the street. You've got your box in your hand. Go ahead and make a dexterity check for me.  
Ally: 8.  
Brennan: You go and you're running. And as you look down, you're running through a little melted area of snow. And you look down and see that everything else but you has a reflection in the puddle. [eerie music] And at that exact second, you fall into the puddle. [snaps] All of a sudden, you are standing on the other side of the puddle in a snow-covered New York where snow is issuing out of the storm drains in the street and flying up into a sky full of endless stars. This sky is more stars than it is darkness. It is night-time here. You see that a full moon turns around to you. And you see that there is a beautiful woman in the moon. Incredible eye shadow, full lips, turns and says:

Moon: Holy shit! This is fucking crazy.  
Pete: I'll say.  
Moon: You want to take a look around?  
Brennan: This enormous moonbeam collides with the ground at your feet, and you are raised up on it and see an endless dreamscape of New York City stretching around you. A unicorn rushes past you that is-- you see the unicorn is sparkling, but you can tell it has also put glitter on itself.  
[cast laughing]  
Unicorn: [Southern Belle accent] Oh my god! What are you doing here? Sugar, are you new to this place? Something tells me you're real as hell.  
Pete: Yeah.  
Unicorn: Wow, that is something else. I am loving this.  
Pete: OK. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. [slaps face]  
Brennan: When you slap yourself, you fall through the moonbeam. And you see that as you're falling, this insane owl, pigeon, monkey, angel thing-- it looks like a huge eight foot tall monkey with a pair of wings on its back and an owl's face starts flying around you and says:  
Angel: [excitedly] He's back! He's back! He's back!  
Brennan: And grabs your face and gives you a weird beaky kiss and says:  
Angel: I'm so happy you're here!  
Brennan: You land on the ground and it's very-- like a weird bouncy cloud. You see that there is a little rat with a slice of pizza strapped to its back like a hiker. And you see he goes:  
Pizza rat: [squeaky voice] Holy shit. You're here! That's incredible!  
Pete: Thank you.  
Pizza rat: For sure.  
Pete: Where am I?  
Pizza rat: I don't know. Where do you want to be?  
Pete: OK. OK, something else was in those shrooms, I think. I think--  
Brennan: What is Peter feeling right now?  
Ally: Insa-- this is crazy. I think I'm just like-- where'd my dad float off too?  
Brennan: As soon as you think of your dad, you see a little thing of bubbles with him sailing off in this dream realm and suddenly, you drop through the cloud and are in inky blackness, and you hear whispers all around you.  
Whispers: He's gone. We have him now. You'll never have to worry about him again. We can make things that are unreal real. And we can make things real unreal. Whatever you want. Do you want this power?  
Brennan: Your med bracelet starts to glow on your hand. And a little happy face appears on it, throbbing like a button you could press. [buzzing]  
Pete: Is this DMT?  
Ally: I think about pressing it. [a pause] Fuck it.  
Brennan: You hear a colossal rending and the entire darkness splits above you and the silvery stars and white clouds pour through, and you can feel things screaming with joy as they escape from whatever realm this is. You suddenly feel yourself being drawn into deeper darkness. You hear a voice. A single point of golden light, bright gold burning with intensity. You start to feel your real body sweating and your heart rate picking up.  
Voice: [deep, demonic voice] Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today. I want to--  
Brennan: [sound of fire burning] A rectangle of golden light in burning lines, superimposed against inky blackness forever beyond it, appears before you, and the burning singes your skin and your eyes.  
Voice: I want to be a part of it.  
Brennan: You suddenly feel yourself dropping again and a little gray child's face with inky black eyes appears in front of you as black tears go down its gray face.  
Ally: What the fuck are you doing to me, man?  
Brennan: And says-- You wanted to be a wild magic sorcerer!  
Ally: Yeah, yeah.  
Brennan: And looks at you and goes,  
Gray baby: It’s happening. I'm so sorry. Heed the words of Lazarus before it's too late.  
Brennan: Disappears. You are in an alleyway surrounded by SantaCon people.  
Pete: Fuck. [Brennan snaps] I wish I had a girlfriend.  
Brennan: You see that one of the SantaCon people turns over to you and half of his face melts. And he just goes "Ho, ho, ho" and bites the side of your head.  
Pete: No, no, no, no!  
Brennan: Great! And we're gonna move on to our next PC! Wonderful.  
Siobhan: Jesus Christ. What a way to start.  
Ally: Wow!  
Lou: Oh my god.  
Emily: That was trippy!  
Lou: There's a lot of tension being released right now.  
Emily: I know.  
Lou: My god.  
Brennan: Hell yeah.  
Ally: All right.  
Emily: Should we take five? Jesus, I need to splash myself with cold water.  
Ally: Fuck yeah.  
Brennan: Hell yeah. We're going to roll another little dice here.  
Lou: Gray-faced child?  
Brennan: A little bit of snow kicks up and goes across the harbor, past the Statue of Liberty, swirling through the giant cables of the Verrazano Bridge, all the way to Staten Island where we see a nice little hair salon. First class luxury beauty salon. We see that there is a woman sitting in a chair. She's got a little smock over her. And there is a woman styling her hair right now. Emily, could you please describe your character to us?  
Emily: OK. My name is Sofia Lee. I'm sorry. No. It is Sofia Bicicleta. [Staten Island accent] I was Sofia Lee for [sighs] five beautiful years, but then my husband Dale left me. So now I'm back to Sofia Bicicleta. Sofia Bikes, you might hear me be called. I suppose I can have a bit of a hot temper. Dale really balanced me out, but now that he's gone I'm on a little bit of a bender. But that's fine. I mean, I can keep up an active lifestyle. Similar to Pete, I haven't been sleeping because the bed I was sleeping in I once shared with my husband. So I just don't even really like being there right now. And basically, I'm in a tight leopard print skirt, a tight pink cami, and basically, I look like of Fran Drescher went on an Amy Winehouse bender. And I'm doing a pretty bad job because I'm pretty hungover.  
Brennan: You see the woman in the chair is trying to make small talk with you. She says:  
Woman: [Staten Island accent] And honestly, I couldn't fucking believe it because the house is a disaster--  
Sofia: Really?  
Woman: Oh, it's awful. They painted it this shade of like, I don't know, lime green. It looks like it's fucking St. Patrick's Day.  
Sofia: I tell you, everyone on this island has too much money they don't even know what to do with.  
Woman: That's what I'm trying to say. It doesn't take a lot of money to be classy. I don't understand.  
Sofia: I know, but everyone just gets bored. So they just-- they're like, "Well, I can't buy a bigger house because then it'll be obvious I'm in the mob, so I guess I'll just paint my house a new shade of lime green." [starts crying] I'm sorry.  
Woman: Oh, god. Sofie, no!  
Sofia: No, no, no. It's fine. I really want to keep doing your hair. I gotta get it teased.  
Woman: I honestly-- I honestly-- Sof-- I've been coming to you for my hair for three years now--  
Sofia: Yeah.  
Woman: I'm not trying to-- you know, you've fully cut my bangs down to about a quarter of an inch. They're--  
Sofia: Did you not want baby bangs?  
Woman: Well, the thing is that they’re a bristle now. So it really looks like I'm some kind of-- I don't know.  
Sofia: Yeah. I know. I know. And I'm gonna-- I'm gonna give you a discount. I am.  
Woman: [dissatisfied] OK. Discount, OK.  
Sofia: Tell you what, give me your little-- give me your little coupon and I'll--  
Woman: Oh, my punch card?  
Sofia: Yeah, give me your punch card and I'll punch out a couple extra.  
Woman: Honestly, you're a doll. And honestly, it's so fucked up what happens. And god forbid anything would’ve happened to me and Bobby, but--  
Sofia: OK. I don't think you need to bring in you and Bobby just because me and Dale fell apart. And we wouldn't have fallen apart if Isabella Infierno didn't come over the bridge or wherever she came from. [whispers] God, a prick.  
Woman: OK, look, I understand-- look-- everyone knows she's a whore. All right?  
Sofia: OK. OK. I don't know that we should be putting down other women that much.  
Woman: Oh--  
Sofia: She's a succubus is what she is. Witchcraft is the only thing that could have taken Dale away from me. Yes, we've had our fights. Usually my fault because he was just so even-tempered.  
Woman: Sofie--  
Sofia: All he wanted to do was just watch the deer in the backyard.  
Woman: He just watched deer in the backyard?  
Sofia: He loved it when-- we had a couple of animals that would come in and out of the backyard, and he just liked watching them.  
Woman: Sofie, look--  
Sofia: He was a very calming presence.  
Woman: I love you to death. Everybody in the neighborhood-- when you went and married Dale, he's not from around here.

Sofia: I know he's not.  
Woman: People here marry people from here, all right?  
Sofia: I know. And I don't want someone from here.  
Woman: And nobody wants to say, I told you so. Nobody wants to say that. So, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna settle up with you for the day. We're gonna stop it here. I'm gonna go look at some hats.  
Sofia: No, I can fix the bangs. I can. I just-- a couple more snips and I think they'll be fixed.  
Woman: OK. I'm looking at it now and it looks like-- like those old medieval monks. It looks like one just shifted forward about five inches to cut off the front part.  
Sofia: Right. OK, it's not my best work, but do you want a free mani?  
Woman: God, and I understand what you're going through. If I let any more of this happen to myself, I'm accountable for it. Right? I've already spoken up and I need to interject.  
Sofia: Do you want some premade Sangria? I've got some in the fridge.  
Brennan: She looks over. You see that a bunch of Barbicide supplies that need to be kept cold have been removed from this fridge to have a giant pitcher of Sangria. You see, she says:

Woman: OK, it's 10:30 in the morning.  
Sofia: I know. I exercise some restraint at 8:00 AM.  
Woman: OK. Yeah. You know what? I'll have a little bit of Sangria.  
Sofia: OK.  
Brennan: The door jingles and your brother Mario walks in.  
Sofia: What do you want?  
Mario: [Staten Island accent] How's it going, Sof? Jesus! What the fuck's wrong with this lady's hair? What's the fucking problem? It looks like shit--  
Sofia: Oh, Mario, like you know anything about women's fashion.  
Mario: I happen to know a lot! Just 'cause my fashion line went down in flames doesn't mean I don't know about fashion.  
Sofia: [yelling] No one wants alligator skin anymore!  
Mario: When you say hurtful stuff like that, that's how I know you're in an emotional spot. Alligator skin has been-- is-- all right, fashion is cyclical, you fucking stugots! All right?  
Sofia: OK. OK.  
Mario: I'm gonna lose my temper.  
Sofia: OK. OK. Everyone keep-- everyone keep it together.  
Mario: Here's what I wanna say.  
Sofia: Hm?  
Mario: Mom would like you to come by for dinner at some point, alright? This is the fucking olive branch.  
Sofia: I know, I know, I know. Yes, I will. I will come by at some point. I don't know what my night is like tonight.  
Mario: How 'bout this-- how 'bout this Sunday?  
Sofia: Sunday.  
Mario: All right?  
Sofia: Oh. If I show up, am I going to be guilted for not going to church because it's Sunday?  
Mario: I mean, would it kill you to go to church? I don't understand, right? It's like you marry some guy who's not from the neighborhood, now you're not going to church, and you know.  
Sofia: Don't bring him into this. You didn't know him.  
Mario: Look, I don't know him, but I know Isabella Infierno, all right? And--  
Sofia: Oh my god.  
Mario: You know what?

Sofia: You want me to start running my mouth about alligator skin again? Because I will.  
Mario: It is a USA Business. You can farm alligator leather in the states. It is ethical. And fuck, I don't have to fucking explain myself to you. We'll see you Sunday or not, all right! Jesus.  
Brennan: You see he turns and leaves. You--  
Sofia: Don't forget to pay the meter!  
Brennan: You leave after your shift is done. You settle up. It's getting to be that time of year where Christmas music is starting to be played around.  
Sofia: Oh my god. Dale.  
Brennan: It's just that time of year again. You're feeling extremely hung over and sobriety is starting to wend its way back into the corners of your brain.  
Sofia: OK, well, I have two options because if I don't get a drink right now, I'm probably going to go buy more Christmas presents for Dale like he's going to come back, so I guess I'm gonna go to a bar. [Brennan laughs]  
Brennan: You head up to a bar. Go ahead and roll a wisdom saving throw for me.  
Emily: Saving? Oh. 21.  
Brennan: 21, cool. So you get the fuck out of here. You don't go to any of the places on Staten Island that would remind you of Dale. You don't go to any places here. You hop on the ferry. You head into the city.  
Emily: Wind in my hair.  
Brennan: You maybe pre-game on the ferry a little bit.  
Emily: Corona.  
Ally: One of those Coronitas!  
Brennan: You arrive-- you arrive in the city. What kind of bar are you looking for here?  
Emily: Honestly, just like one with as many people as possible. Or one-- maybe one that a bunch of people are by themselves so I don't have to feel weird for being by myself.  
Brennan: Cool. So you find some dingy Irish bar somewhere in the city. Old wood table, you sit at it. You start having your drinks. Go ahead and make a constitution saving throw for me.  
Emily: 16.  
Brennan: Hell yeah. You're holding your own. You're able to-- you're going a nice couple rounds. This bartender, Sean, is looking at you. He's a scruffy bartender guy, late 30s.  
Sean: Hey, how's it going, Miss? What can I get you?  
Sofia: Can I get a Stoli Raz with seltzer and a twist?  
Sean: Yeah, I can do that for you. No problem.  
Brennan: He goes over--  
Sofia: That's raspberry.  
Sean: Yeah. Oh, I assumed. Yeah.  
Sofia: OK.  
Sean: I assumed. Yeah.  
Brennan: You see he has-- this is-- this place is close enough to the ferry that it has every flavor of Stoli. You see there's the Stoli Raz, puts the twist in it, seltzer, puts it in front of you. He says:  
Sean: Hey, I like that-- what is that? Angora? It's a nice little-- a nice little sweater you got there.  
Sofia: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it is angora. It is authentic. You guys got a Kindle behind the bar or something that I could read?  
Sean: You want to read an e-reader?  
Sofia: I don't know. I just-- I just-- I just don't entirely know how to interact with people right now.  
Brennan: You see he nods. You see that there's a couple of guys at the end of the bar. They've got like striped shirts, very spiky frost-- or not some but one of them is frosted but with spiky hair-- through chains. You see that one of them looks over to you and says:  
Man: Oh, you want to read something?  
Sofia: I'm trying to figure out how that could be a pickup line because it sounds like the beginning of one. Yes, maybe.  
Man: Why don't you read my dick? [whooping]  
Sofia: Oh. OK. 'Cause I had considered maybe it was gonna go in that direction, then I thought, "No, he's better than that." No, I'm not gonna read your dick!  
Brennan: You see the one who says--  
Sofia: Because I don't read short stories! Thank you! Thank you!  
Brennan: You see that everywhere in the bar--  
Emily: I jump up on the bar.  
Brennan: Everyone in the bar goes nuts for that. You jump on the bar. Cool. You are the hero of the bar at that point. You stay there for a while-- you're there, honestly-- you're there for hours.  
Zac: Don't read short stories?  
Brennan: I don't read short stories.  
Zac: Not at all?  
Brennan: After a while, it's like-- I would say, it's 10:30, 11 o’clock at night-- you've been here for a couple hours. And you're having a ball. That burn was so great. The bartender's been hooking you with free drinks. Go ahead, you've been here-- I’ll say four hours. Go ahead and give me four constitution saving throws.  
Emily: OK. First two are 21 and a 12. The next two are 9 and a 12. I am getting drunker though.  
Brennan: You are getting drunker. Yeah, it's getting to that point. You see you're having a ball and a huge bachelorette party comes into the bar. They're all going:  
Woman: Whoo, Tina! Yeah, Tina!  
Brennan: They go to the floor. You see one of them says:  
Woman: The bride-to-be will have a slippery nipple shot!  
Sofia: Oh my god. There's barely any alcohol in there!  
Brennan: You see Sean walks over to you, the bartender, and says:  
Sean: Hey, it's all right. This is a lot of business coming in.  
Sofia: Yeah. No, you're totally right, Sean. I'm so sorry.  
Sean: You OK?  
Sofia: Yeah, you know, it's just, sometimes you lose the person that balances you out and you're a bit unhinged.  
Sean: Let's get you some whiskey. You want a shot of whiskey?  
Sofia: You got any of the stuff that tastes like Christmas, like cinnamon and fire?  
Brennan: He does that. Go ahead and give me a constitution saving throw with disadvantage.  
Emily: I got-- fuck-- an 18 still, but I did get a nat 20.  
Brennan: Cool. That Christmas shot goes down real smooth, real easy. You have this Christmasy shot--  
Emily: It gives me a clear head.  
Brennan: Yeah. And you see that the maid of honor clearly raises her glass and says:  
Maid of honor: Tina, you are beautiful, you are wonderful, your life is all laid out ahead of you, and you're building it in this moment. And honestly, there is not a better guy than Richard for you. We're so happy you found the one. It is smooth sailing from here on out. But there's one last night of choppy water!  
Sofia: [interrupting] I just want to say something!  
Brennan: All the whole bachelorette party turns to look at you.  
Sofia: Sorry. Can I borrow this old karaoke machine? Thanks.  
Emily: I mic it up.  
Sofia: I just want to tell you, Tina, that marriage was the best thing that ever happened to me, and you have a lot to look forward to. And, you know, I hope he makes you a slippery nipple every night before you go to bed. I do. I really do. [singing] ♪ Start spreading the news. ♪  
Brennan: You see that they stop you. The bachelorette-- all of the bachelorette party comes over and is like:  
Bachelorette party: [awkwardly] OK, thank you.  
Sofia: You're welcome. You’re welcome.  
Brennan: And you see-- your vision goes a little fuzzy for a second. Those three guys at the end of the bar you saw earlier-- you're getting a little punch drunk from the alcohol. I guess just drunk. And you look over and, you swear to God, these guys are like 10 feet tall.  
And their skin is this mottled green, almost weird vegetative or something. And they have these long noses covered in warts. And they're kind of all laughing and looking at each other. And you see that two of the bachelorette party are basically, are like:  
Woman: You wanna go outside for a cigarette?  
Second woman: Yeah, let's go outside.  
Brennan: And you see they walk outside. You see the three hulking people that, again, your vision is fucking up, turn to follow these women outside after the bar.  
Emily: Oh, no, I don't think so. If these are choppy waters, consider me their lifesaver. And I stomp out. And I'm going to follow them.  
Brennan: You follow them. You see the two women hook around into a little alleyway, near this dumpster. They're just smoking real quick. They're doing that thing where they're dressed very cute, but it's fucking freezing outside. So they're just shivering and smoking. And you catch the first line of one of these, again, what is Sofia thinking as she sees these hulking monstrous-- ?  
Emily: I think she's just going through the thing where she's like "Oh my god. I have been drinking so much that sometimes I am just-- I feel like I'm seeing things. The other morning, I woke up in an alley, and I could swear that a giant rat man brought me an egg sandwich and a Gatorade to help me sober up. So, I'm definitely-- I'm definitely killing some brain cells. But you know what? You've got to kill some to kill the ones that have the memories of Dale on them. So, yeah. If this means that some men look like creepy 10 foot tall gray-skinned men from now on, that's fine with me as long as I can forget Dale's aftershave.  
Brennan: So you see that one of these hulking, weird wart-covered giants looks over at one of these young women and goes:  
Giant: Hey, look. Can I bum a cigarette from you? It seems like you've got a real party going on in there.  
Brennan: And you see he puts a giant clawed hand on the small of her back.  
Sofia: OK. All right. That's not a part that we touch on women. Hi, it's me, Sofia Lee-- Bicicleta. I was in there on the karaoke machine earlier. I'll also take a cigarette.  
Emily: And I smush myself in between the guy.  
Brennan: You see that, as you smush yourself in there, you see that-- [eerie music]-- there is something around these giant troll people that's like these wisps of almost heat waves on a hot day, or some kind of wispy bit of their shadow peeling off them, little flickers. It almost is a very subtle fire or a smoke or something. And as you wedge in and touch one, you see that the haze around them actually disappears. And the three of them look and see that you're looking at their eyes, where their eyes actually are. And they all kind of look at each other and look back at you. And you see that the two women quickly stamp out their cigarettes and walk-- slide away from you-- and you see that the three tall-- for all intents and purposes-- trolls turn to you and say:  
Troll: You got a fucking problem, lady?  
Sofia: Yeah, I got a problem. What are you doing with those women?  
Troll: Well--  
Sofia: 'Cause I do not consider you the type to walk around without a cigarette.  
Brennan: You see they look around at each other and they say:  
Troll: Well, that's on us, I guess. That cigarette tax is no joke though.  
Sofia: That's true.  
Brennan: They look at you and say:  
Troll: Well, maybe we can bum one off of you. What do you think?  
Sofia: I actually don't smoke.  
Brennan: You see that one of these guys rears back a clawed hand to take a swing at you.  
Emily: All right. I trip him.  
Brennan: Go ahead and--  
Emily: Wait, really?  
Brennan: Yeah, go ahead. Real quick. I'll make a-- just make a dexterity check for me to see if you can beat them to the punch.  
Emily: OK. I got a nat one.  
Brennan: Nat one.  
Siobhan: First real roll of the game.  
Brennan: This guy fucking--  
Lou: Jesus.  
Brennan: This guy fucking clocks you in the head for-- I'm gonna use my little dice box. Siobhan made dice boxes for everybody.  
Ally: Yes! I'll show mine later.  
Brennan: This guy clocks you for 12 points of damage. And I need you to make another constitution saving throw for me.  
Emily: 14.  
Brennan: Cool. Cool. Go ahead and make your attacks on him.  
Emily: OK. First up, I'd like to tell him that hurt, but probably not as much as my burn earlier. And then, go attack him.  
Brennan: Go for it.  
Emily: Does a 15 hit?  
Brennan: 15 does hit.  
Emily: Ooh! All right. That's gonna be 10, and then I’m gonna take my stiletto off and thwack him for another 7.  
Brennan: Ooh, shit. Awesome.  
Emily: And then I'm gonna spend a ki point to--  
Zac: Oh, shit.  
Emily:-- thwack him again.  
Siobhan: Fuck him up.  
Emily: Flurry of Blows for another 6.  
Brennan: 6, 7, and what else? Sorry?  
Lou: 10.  
Brennan: 6, 7, and 10. 17-- 23 points of damage. This guy, bam, knocks you in the head. You come out-- your nice hairdo is a little bit messed up. Tell me exactly what happens to this fucking troll.  
Emily: All right. I would like to take off both my stilettos and just put 'em through his eyes.  
Brennan: You see you go, whap, into this guy's eyes. So he goes [screaming] and just runs down the street, bumping into shit. And the two trolls run after him.  
Other troll: Holy shit! Vin, are you OK?  
Vin: Nah, I got fucking shoes in my eyes!  
Sofia: Leave that bachelorette alone! She's got a really happy life ahead of her!  
Brennan: Sofia, you are shoeless.  
Emily: Again.  
Brennan: You are definitely concussed. You feel yourself drop and fall against the wall outside the bar and sort of slump down into a very soft, warm trash bag.  
Emily: It's nice. Oh, it feels like someone threw out a pillow.  
Brennan: And Sofia goes to sleep. On to our next PC.  
Lou: Wow.  
Ally: Wow.  
Brennan: Let's see who goes next. A bit of snow whisks off of the trash as Sofia pulls that other garbage bag onto herself for warmth.  
Sofia: [quietly] This feels good.  
Brennan: And we go all the way off across the East River into Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where we come down and there's a little four-story stone building, railroad apartments, classic New York apartment building.  
And we hear-- [sirens, horn honking, fire roaring]-- as a raging inferno melts the snow overhead. The third and fourth story of this building are engulfed in flames. We see out the window, looking through a set of bars-- there are bars to keep the window safe for kids being in that space-- there is a little 8-year-old girl with a little bit of soot and smoke on her face. She's clutching a little teddy bear in her hand, looking at the bar and yelling down. You see that there's paramedics and firefighters and cops down. They’re saying:  
Man: Don't worry, little girl! We're gonna get you out of there! Stay close to the window! Keep your head down out of the smoke!  
Girl: [crying, in a childlike voice] I'm scared! I'm scared!  
Brennan: With an eruption of force, the door of the room-- boom!-- explodes into cinders. Zac, could you describe your character for us?  
Zac: I'm Ricky Matsui. I'm a firefighter in New York, specifically in Brooklyn. I believe in just doing the right thing, and I always wanted to be a firefighter. So, I accomplished that goal, so I'm feeling really good about myself. I'm pretty much set for life, I guess, and I'm just here to help.  
Brennan: Ricky, you survey the area here. You see that there is a barred window. There's a little girl near these bars of the window. It's a nursery room in here. You see that two of your other firefighter pals have just busted down the door into a room where it looks like the girl's primary caretaker, who's her grandmother, she turns around to look at you and she goes:  
Girl: Are you a firefighter?  
Ricky: I am.  
Brennan: What's Ricky do?  
Zac: Ricky-- first, Ricky's like:  
Ricky: That's a really cool bear. What's his name?  
Girl: His name's Theo.  
Ricky: All right. Hold on to Theo real tight. And then I'm gonna pick you up and we're all just going to have a fun time getting out of here.  
Brennan: You see an emanating warmth of-- to say that it's holy often conjures connotations of like a religion-- but a holy light made out of just civic responsibility and a love of safety emanates from Ricky Matsui. And you see that the girl wipes the tears from her eyes and says:  
Girl: OK. We're going to be all right, little guy.  
Brennan: She says it to her teddy bear and runs up and leaps into your arms. What does Ricky Matsui look like, by the way?  
Zac: Ricky Matsui is-- he is 5'8", but really strong. He just works out. He believes in, you know, you just keep your body right to keep your mind right. It's the cheapest therapy he can have, working out. He picks the girl up with just one arm and he's kind of like a Superman-ish, if he were Japanese. And he's just ready to get out of there.  
Brennan: Fuck yeah. And roll.  
Ally: Cheapest therapy. [laughs]  
Brennan: You rush out. As you're running, something sort of tingles in your mind, in the corner of your consciousness. And you can feel moments before it happened. Go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw for me.  
Zac: 12 plus-- 13.  
Brennan: 13. You see that a beam-- a burning beam falls down behind you. You feel it about the same time before it happens. You jump, tumble, somersault with the girl holding onto her in your arms. She's holding onto her bear. There is now a burning obstacle in the way between your friends, who are getting the grandmother, who will maybe not be able to make it out past this beam that is now obstructing the hallway.  
Zac: I make sure no one's watching, and then I create water on the burning beam.  
Brennan: There is a little girl in your arms.  
Zac: Oh, yes. I say:  
Ricky: Look out the window real fast.  
Brennan: She looks out the window real fast. You channel the power within you. Your fireman's ax, the questing blade, at your side glows bright and a geyser blast of water erupts from your outstretched hand. Coats the beam, the water corrodes it, the fire beats into it, and it snaps in half and clears the hallway.  
Ricky: Hey, something happened. What was the window like?  
Girl: The window? It was normal. I think normal. Did you-- ?  
Ricky: That's awesome.  
Brennan: You make it out of here. You can hear your firefighter brothers behind you. You make it down to the sidewalk and you emerge from the smoke and you see that there is an eruption of cheers as the grandma and the girl comes out in your arms. You see that there's a New York One van there and a New York One reporter comes up, who's in the middle of the broadcast, and she says:  
Reporter: Sir, sir, you've just amazingly saved a young girl's life in this burning building. On behalf of the city, thank you so much. Is this the last people in the building right now?  
Brennan: And holds the--  
Zac: The other people got out already?  
Brennan: The other people got out already, yeah.  
Ricky: Yeah. That's pretty much it. Everyone at home, if you're watching this, make sure that your sprinklers are up to date, that you have fire extinguishers, and you're always taking the precautions you need to keep your home safe. We got lucky this time. Make sure that you're just keeping up with that. Am I on TV right now?  
Reporter: Oh, yeah. This is for New York One.  
Ricky: Awesome. What's up, mom? What's up, dad? Emiko, hey, what's going on? I just want to say, you know, holidays are a tough time for Christmas trees. You know, you want to make sure you're safe with that. God, I'm just not used to being on TV right now.  
Reporter: Oh, that's OK.  
Ricky: Was that good?  
Reporter: I think we got what we needed.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Reporter: Absolutely. Sorry, was that-- ?  
Ricky: Did you want me to keep talking?  
Reporter: No. You're good. Thank you so much.  
Ricky: I'm good? Awesome.  
Reporter: You're fully good. Again, the heroic job of--  
Zac: Just stand behind her.  
Reporter: Heroic job from the-- you can--  
Ricky: I can get out of here?  
Reporter: From the New York Fire Department, FDNY. Yep. Heroic job. Obviously, the fire has been contained. So, I mean, we'll just move the shot over here. Move the shot over here.  
Ricky: Follow you? Follow you?  
Reporter: No, you're good. You're fully good, sir. Thank you so much.  
Ricky: What kind of camera is this?  
[cast laughing]  
Brennan: You reunite with the little girl. The little girl looks up at you and you see she's holding her bear as you reunite her with her grandmother. The grandmother says,  
Grandmother: [elderly voice] Thank you so much. You saved our lives. You saved my little girl. You are a hero.  
Ricky: I mean. You know, I'm just doing--  
Grandmother: March! You're Mr. March from the fireman's calendar.  
Ricky: Yes.  
Grandmother: Wow!  
Ricky: I posed for our calendar. It's me. Do you want me to-- I'll sign it if you want, I guess.  
Brennan: You see that she pulls it out and says:  
Grandmother: Yes, I made sure to grab it on the way out.  
Brennan: You see there's a singed--  
Ricky: You grabbed it?  
Grandmother: I grabbed it. I made the firefighters go back into the kitchen.  
Ricky: OK. Well, just make sure to keep safe. Wow, I'm not as tan as I used to be. I gotta work on that.  
Brennan: You see she closes it and says:  
Grandmother: You're a real hunky number in here. Ooh!  
Ricky: Thank you, ma'am.  
Grandmother: Five alarms. No kidding!  
Zac: I just show her my abs.  
Brennan: She cries a little bit.  
Grandmother: You are really a hero.  
Ricky: Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate that.

Brennan: The little girl looks a little bit confused. You feel a little ping in your phone, but the girl looks up at you with a little bit of confusion and she says,  
Girl: I looked at the window, but Theo didn't. You made that big log stop burning, right?  
Ricky: You know, sometimes, firefighters use all the tools on their belt and some of it is confusing to children.  
Girl: You're a wizard.  
Ricky: I'm not a wizard.  
Girl: Oh, it's OK.  
Ricky: Hey, can you keep a secret?  
Girl: I'll keep a-- only me and Theo will know.  
Ricky: OK. Yeah, I've kind of got some magic in me.  
Girl: [excited] Aah!  
Brennan: Screams and runs around in a little circle. Your phone pings again and you see that it's another-- you look at your phone. See that it's a couple of texts from Esther, who is the head of the Clinton Hill Chantry. And she is texting and says "Need to meet up ASAP. SantaCon today. Couple of points to cover. Would love your help if available."  
Zac: I send her a selfie of me with the fire and I'm like "Just finishing up here. On the way. How you doing? Never mind. I'll see you in a sec."  
Brennan: You get a couple little ellipses and then just the word "good." Cool. How does Ricky get over to the chantry?  
Zac: How far is that?  
Brennan: From here, it's not too far. The train lines aren't great going from--  
Zac: Just sprints.  
Brennan: Yeah. So Ricky just gets up, sprints down the street, and you get up onto the rooftops, and are just bounding over the rooftops of New York, this ax glinting in the sun.  
Ricky: [victoriously] Yeah!  
Brennan: You arrive at the Clinton Hill Chantry, which is a lovely little brownstone and a very beautiful ivy-covered part of Brooklyn. And you see that the door has a gargoyle, one of those bronze knockers that has a gargoyle biting a little knocker ring on it. And you approach the door. What do you do when you get to the door?  
Zac: I address the gargoyle. I say:  
Ricky: How's it goin', Frank? [metallic creak]  
Frank: [VOICE DESCRIPTION] Ah, you know, it's been better. Say, I gotta tell you, man. It gets to this time of the year. The heat and the cold. The metal expands and contracts. I can feel myself busting my fat ass through the wood of the door. It's a fucking hassle, you know. How 'bout you, man? You lookin' good!  
Ricky: I'm trying to get on that metal level.  
Frank: Good luck. Yeah, that's great, man. How's your ma? She's good?  
Ricky: She's good. My whole family's great, I mean, a lot of people got problems.  
Frank: Oh, for sure. Hey, believe me, I know. For me-- hey, you got to count your blessings, right? You can move around. I'm stuck in a door, so--  
Ricky: If you ever want me to bring you any kind of treats or any kind of sandwiches or anything--  
Frank: Actually, yeah. If you're not busy right now, they're doing-- you know, there's this place down at [INAUDIBLE] that do like a chicken parm, if you wanted to grab one, I wouldn't mind that.  
Ricky: I could bring it to you later. I kind of got to go in there, and I'm sorry about it.  
Frank: Yeah, you're busy. [choking noises]  
Brennan: The door swings open. You walk in. [happy music] This is one of those areas of New York where it's-- there's this sense of old distinguished parlors and rooms. It's very dusty, leather bound books everywhere-- little glass case with some strange swirled staff in it. And you see that there's still some painter's tape over the glass case that your questing blade shot out of when you rescued these wizards from a fire about eleven months ago.  
You see Esther walks out. Esther is a very cool young wizard in her 20s. She's got like an undercut and a little bit of her hair coming over to one side. She's got a bunch of jewelry and very wizard chic, where it's like bangles and jewels and rings that do stuff. But then also just her wearing a pair of jeans and some high boots. You see Esther turns to you and says,  
Esther: Oh, Ricky, good you made it here in record time.  
Ricky: Well, you know if you go over the buildings, it's a lot quicker. I keep saying this, but awesome haircut. It's awesome.  
Esther: Thank you.  
Ricky: It's so cool.  
Esther: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Just like to keep it new and exciting. So, I want to tell you a little bit about SantaCon and what's going to be happening today.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Esther: Have I-- 'Cause you came in here about eleven months ago, so you missed the last SantaCon.  
Ricky: This is my first SantaCon since I saw all the magic stuff.  
Brennan: You see-- you see that she says,  
Esther: All the magic stuff. Yeah, since you were inducted into the Unsleeping City by the questing blade and the magical world that exists behind the waking world, New York was revealed to you, this is your first SantaCon with us.  
Ricky: Yeah.  
Esther: So, what do you know about SantaCon already?  
Ricky: I guess it's just a bunch of drunk people trying to have some fun in the streets. It's kind of hard to do other stuff while that's happening. For firefighters, a lot of us are working that. So, it's maybe not my favorite thing, but I get that people enjoy that.  
Esther: For sure.  
Ricky: As long as you're being safe, that's the way to go, I guess.  
Esther: So what SantaCon actually is-- [music plays]-- is a little bit more complex than that.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Esther: People perceive SantaCon to be a large, obnoxious pub crawl. You ever wondered how Santa Claus is able to get to all those homes in one night?  
Ricky: Well, I just assumed it's magic, but yeah.  
Esther: Well, magic has to work in certain ways.  
Ricky: Totally.  
Esther: Magic can't just solve everything. That's how we have all these books. It's actually quite complex.  
Ricky: Gotcha.  
Esther: Magic is very hard to do.  
Ricky: Interesting. I thought-- yeah. OK.  
Esther: It just doesn't solve all your problems.  
Ricky: OK.  
Esther: So, first of all, Santa Claus is real.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Esther: Yes. Second of all, in order to get to all those homes in one night, Santa can't be in all those places at once. That would take a level of magic that is honestly staggering to even consider. So, instead what happens is Santa Claus clones himself millions and millions of times, and each of those clones goes to the separate houses. Are you with me so far?  
Ricky: Yeah. I think I get it. What? He clones himself a million times?  
Esther: Millions of times. Clones himself millions of times. And those clones then go about and actually do that work for Santa Claus. However, the technology that Santa uses is extremely potent, but--  
Ricky: Wait, is Santa a scientist?  
Esther: Hm?  
Ricky: He's a scientist?  
Esther: Partially, yes.  
Ricky: Wow.  
Esther: But also an extremely powerful sorcerer.  
Ricky: Oh, OK.  
Esther: Effectively, if you clone yourself millions and millions of times, even with the best arcane equipment available and the best spell casting, not every single clone is gonna turn out great.  
Ricky: I grew up with twins and one of them was worse than the other, so that makes sense.  
Esther: I hear that. I hear that. I believe--  
Ricky: Just didn’t like sports, he seemed like a nice guy.  
Esther: It's a little bit dissimilar from that, I won't lie.  
Ricky: Oh, OK. Yeah.  
Esther: But effectively what happens is that a week or two before Christmas every year, Santa Claus comes to New York, and because of the umbral arcana--  
Ricky: Mm-hmmm.  
Esther: Do you need a refresher on the umbral arcana?  
Ricky: I do. Yeah.  
Esther: OK.  
Ricky: I'm sorry.  
Esther: It's OK. No, it's all right. [music plays] So, I run the Clinton Hill Chantry, which is a branch of the Gramercy Occult Society. You’re with me so far, right?  
Ricky: Yeah.  
Esther: The Gramercy Occult Society manages the Umbral Engine--  
Ricky: Yeah.  
Esther: Right? And that creates the umbral arcana, which is the spectral force that keeps New Yorkers from being aware that magical things are happening around them at all times.  
Ricky: Keeps them safe from the idea of magical stuff.  
Esther: Yes. Precisely. That's exactly right.  
Ricky: I can figure it out that way. Yeah.  
Esther: It keeps them safe. It's a safety thing.  
Ricky: Yeah.  
Esther: So, because of that, Santa deposits his defective clones here in the city once a year. That is SantaCon.  
Ricky: And what happens to them after they get here?  
Esther: They mostly wander around. They're pretty harmless. Most of them have a hard time moving or getting around because, again, they're defective clones. But basically, we just need to round them up and kind of either, depending on how some people feel, you can either hold on to them and they naturally die in a couple of weeks, or you can just incinerate them.  
Ricky: [whispers] Wow.  
Esther: But-- basically, that's what happens.  
Ricky: Is Santa good?  
Esther: He cares deeply for the children of the world and voluntarily clones himself millions of times. The ethics of it are alarming, I won't lie.  
Ricky: It's above my pay grade a little bit to think about that.  
Esther: It's a little bit above your pay grade. So, if you just want to hit the bricks and keep a patrol this evening for any of that weird stuff happening. And just round up any clones that you find and deposit them to us. If they're causing danger, I would say maybe dispatch them right then and there.  
Ricky: Wow. OK. Yeah. It's the right thing to do, I guess.  
Esther: It's the right thing to do. Great. And that selfie was good. That was a nice little thing.  
Ricky: Oh, cool. Thanks. I wasn't sure what you thought of it, but yeah, I can keep sending them to you, I guess.  
Esther: It's not really an invitation, but do what you need to do.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Brennan: Cool, what did Ricky do after that? [laughs]  
Zac: Ricky takes off to SantaCon.  
Brennan: Cool. You're wandering around. It's getting a little bit later in the day. You're rooftop to rooftop moving around. Go ahead and make a perception check for me and an investigate check.  
Zac: Perception's only a 7. [chuckles] 10 for investigate.  
Brennan: Cool. So you're investigating around. You follow a weird, minty smell on the air, and you arrive at this alleyway. You smell the mint growing stronger. As you look over the edge, you see an unconscious Pete the Plug. And you see that there are three horrifying mutant Santa Clauses moving towards Pete's body on the ground.  
Zac: From the--  
Brennan: You're up above them. They're in the alleyway going "ho, ho, ho."  
Zac: I just-- I just stop and jump.  
Ricky: [shouting] Hey! What are you guys doing?  
Mutant Santa Clauses: Merry Christmas!  
Ricky: OK, guys. Hold on. Start climbing down.  
Brennan: You safely descend. Pete, you come to. You got bitten on the head and you can only smell mint. And you can feel your bones becoming sweet in your body.  
Pete: [horrified scream] Fuck!  
Brennan: Ricky, you fully descend into the alleyway. What do you say to these weird mutants looking, shambling around, surrounding you? What do you do? They look a little bit menacing to you.  
Zac: I just-- I step between them and Pete and say:  
Ricky: You guys gotta go stand over there, right now.  
Brennan: Cool.  
Zac: [jokingly] Santas?  
Brennan: Make an--  
Zac: Stand over there.  
Brennan: Make an intimidate check for me real quick.  
Zac: I got a 20.  
Brennan: [incredulously] A 20? You see the one that you were speaking directly to explodes into peppermint and the other two go [mutilated scream] and just start running away.  
Ricky: Oh, no.  
Zac: Are they running into the street?  
Brennan: It looks like they're running into the street.  
Zac: I look at Pete and I feel like I have to check on him first.  
Brennan: Cool. Go ahead and make, I guess, a medicine check for me.  
Zac: 22.  
Brennan: 22? Rad. You-- there is a cult sickness spreading through Pete's body.  
Zac: Do I know if it's a disease?  
Brennan: You know that it's a magical disease, something that only a magical healer would be able to handle.  
Zac: OK. I couldn't use Lay on Hands for five points?  
Brennan: It's not hit point damage, which is something else.  
Pete: Fuck, man. Help.  
Ricky: Hey, sir? Listen to me. I'm in New York City firefighter.  
Pete: I think that guy fucking bit me.  
Ricky: Yeah, it looks like you got a pretty nasty bite.  
Pete: I pull my gun, like I'm gonna go after the two Santas.  
Ricky: OK, sir? Hey, hey, sir? Sir?  
Pete: Fucker!  
Lou: [laughing] What the fuck?  
Ricky: I'm gonna ask you to put that gun down.  
Pete: Huh?  
Ricky: Sir. I'm gonna need you put the gun down.  
Pete: I got all the licenses for it.  
Ally: I put it back in my leg.  
Ricky: That sounds great, but you're in sort of a state right now. I'm gonna get you some help. OK, sir, I know a guy who can help us. He works at the hospital.  
Pete: How much is it? No, I can't go to the hospital, man.  
Ricky: I'm sure-- you really need to go to the hospital.  
Pete: No, no, no.  
Ricky: I can smell how sweet your body's turning and it's time to take care of that.  
Pete: Ow! And yum.  
Brennan: A full peppermint tooth pops one of your original teeth out and a candy cane striped tooth is just in your mouth.  
Pete: Oh, my tooth! I just lost a tooth.  
Ricky: Honestly, that's awful. Let's go.  
[cast laughing]  
Brennan: Pete is having a hard time walking. And Ricky, you get an arm underneath Pete. You guys take off. As you kick up, a little bit of snow wisps up into the air, over  
the river to Manhattan, and uptown, up over the park, over the Upper West Side, past Columbia University, all the way to Harlem. A beautiful, beautiful morning.  
[peaceful music]  
It's getting a little late in the morning now, and after having worked the graveyard shift the previous night, in a lovely apartment, the sounds of the neighborhood coming to life all around him, Kingston Brown wakes up for another shift. Lou, could you describe Kingston Brown for us?  
Lou: Of course. Hello. My name is Kingston Brown. I work at St. Owen's. I'm about 6'2". I wear my grandfather's black trench coat, generally over either my nursing scrubs or a white t-shirt. I'm New York born and bred. I've been here since 1963, when I was born. I've almost never left. I love it here at the city. These are my people. This is my space. I take care of it. I am a steward of New York City. I will be here until I die.  
Brennan: Kingston, you wake up in your apartment. This place is your sanctum. What kind of stuff is around you in your apartment right now?  
Lou: I mean, we got framed jerseys, of course, from my favorite hockey team, the New York Islanders. [cast laughs] Of course.  
Ally: Naturally.  
Lou: I got framed jerseys. I've got a very nice sound system, mostly vinyl, but not hipster vinyl. Actual vinyl. It's comfort over style. It's not-- there's a lot of trinkets and heirlooms and things that my grandfather or that my parents had that they've given to me, or things that I've collected from friends or people who I've worked with, that adorn the walls.  
Brennan: Beautiful. You put on your coat, you look out and see a little bit of snow kick over the neighborhood, and you feel the rate of your heart begin to match the rhythm of the city around you. You head downstairs. You're up on the third floor. You go down to the second floor. Your mom in a little nightcap with a little nightgown, big thick spectacles-- clear frame spectacles-- pops out of the door with a plate of eggs and sausage.  
Kingston: Mom, I can't. I gotta go to work. I can't eat right now.  
Victoria: [elderly voice] Why can't you have breakfast?  
Kingston: Mom, I'm a 55-year-old man. I can feed myself.  
Victoria: So you don't want my breakfast?  
Kingston: I mean, of course I'm going to eat your breakfast. I'm just saying that you don't need to go through all the trouble to make it for me.  
Victoria: It's not a trouble when you love somebody.  
Kingston: All right.  
Lou: I go inside. I take the plate inside.  
Brennan: Take the plate inside. Your mom is glowing with just love and pride, having successfully trapped you on the staircase. There is so much more food waiting inside.  
Kingston: OK, Ma! I thought it was just this plate.  
Victoria: What? No!  
Kingston: I thought it was just this plate.  
Victoria: OK. Well, there's a little more. What do you want me to say?  
Kingston: Well, I can't eat all of this. I'm gonna eat what's on this plate, and then, I'm gonna go.  
Victoria: OK. You can take some with you.  
Kingston: I can't take some with me.  
Victoria: You can take some.  
Kingston: I ain't gonna take some with me.  
Brennan: You see that she kisses you on the cheek, and you can feel her old little hand with this little ring on it slip a little Tupperware into the pocket of your coat.  
Kingston: Ma, what is this?  
Victoria: I don't know!  
Kingston: I'm not supporting this habit.  
Victoria: What you do is your business. You have a Tupperware in your coat. That's free.  
Kingston: OK, we're not going to fight. We're not gonna fight right now because I have to go to work. I'm gonna take this food with me, but we're gonna have words later.  
Victoria: I hope we do. [kisses]  
Brennan: And kisses you on the cheek. And you head downstairs. You see that your niece and nephews come barreling out of the first floor apartment, all late for school. You see like putting shoes and stuff on.  
Niece and nephews: Morning, Uncle Kingston!  
Kingston: Good morning.  
Niece and nephews: Oh, man. Late for school.  
Kingston: Why y'all late for school?  
Niece and nephews: Well, it was--  
Brennan: Your cousin Claude leans his head out and says:  
Claude: Late for school 'cause of video games. What are you gonna do? How you doing, Kingston?  
Kingston: I'm doing well, Claude. How are you?  
Claude: You know, another morning.  
Brennan: You see he says:  
Claude: Didn't you work graveyard last night?  
Kingston: Of course.  
Claude: You're gonna make yourself sick. Why are you doing that?  
Kingston: I ain't gonna make myself sick. I'm 55 years old, all right? I can take care of my damn self, Claude. Why don't you work on getting your children to school on time?  
Brennan: Claude is-- you can feel the spiritual energy of your cousin being put in his place. And he's like--  
Lou: Oh. And then I put a hand on his shoulder. I'm like,  
Kingston: Being a father is tough, and I understand that.  
Brennan: You see that little Cooper looks up at you, who's your 9-year-old nephew. You see, he goes:  
Cooper: Uncle Kingston, why didn't you ever have kids?  
Kingston: Mmm! I'll see y'all children later.  
Brennan: You head out the door. You start walking down the street. You see that from all around the neighborhood, you hear,  
Johnny: Hey, Kingston Brown! How's it goin', man?  
Kingston: Hey, how you doin', Johnny?  
Johnny: I'm doing all right. You know, keeping out of trouble. Hey, thanks for that thing with my sister, man. You're a real swell guy.  
Kingston: Hey, man. We're family. We take care of each other, all right? You're on the block, you come ask Kingston. You need something, I give it to you.  
Brennan: You see that he claps you on the shoulder.  
You go to the corner store. You see Cosmo's there at the register. You see he says:  
Cosmo: Hey, there he is.  
Kingston: Hey, what's goin' on, Cos?  
Brennan: You see he puts the coffee in front of you.  
Kingston: Oh. Is this the way I like it?  
Cosmo: As always.  
Kingston: Black as hell. Just like me.  
Brennan: You see he smiles and says,  
Cosmo: All right, man. You take it easy. Hey, thanks for that thing with my brother, by the way. That was a real--  
Kingston: Hey, man. We're family, all right? On this block, if I can help you, you come find me. I will.  
Brennan: You take off. You walk right out into traffic.  
[Lou and Zac laugh in shock]  
Brennan: At this point, the cars would never dream of hitting you here. Not in your neighborhood.  
Lou: Never.  
Brennan: See the cars-- yeah. It's perfectly-- you do not need to break your stride for the cars to effortlessly zoom past you in all directions. You get to the other side. You walk over to the bus stop. The bus pulls in. Suzette pulls up in the bus. You see she says:  
Suzette: Good morning, Mr. Kingston.  
Kingston: Good morning, Suzette.  
Suzette: Oh, it's wonderful to see you.  
Kingston: Wonderful to see you as well. It had been so long since I was on the bus ride home.  
Suzette: I know! Well, I'm glad to see you're up and at them again.  
Kingston: Of course.  
Brennan: As you take your first step onto the bus, you see that, with no touch of anything, the little light flicks green. Your fare is taken care of by the city itself. You walk onto the bus and you start to head off towards St. Owen's. Arriving at St. Owen's, what is one of the first things that Kingston gets up to in his day?  
Lou: Walk straight up to the receptionist, take out the Tupperware that my mother gave me. Give it to her.  
Receptionist: Oh my god, I forgot to bring lunch!  
Kingston: I thought so.  
Receptionist: Oh my god. How do you know this stuff?  
Kingston: Hey, what can I say? I know my people, I know my city.  
Brennan: You see she says:  
Receptionist: This smells delicious.  
Kingston: Well, I can't say I made it, but I can promise it's good.  
Brennan: You see she smiles and says:  
Receptionist: I'll give your best to my mother.  
Kingston: Of course.  
Brennan: You begin your day. You say hi to Emiko Matsui. She looks over and says:  
Emiko: Kingston, there's a busy day ahead of us here.  
Kingston: OK.  
Emiko: That guy, Lowell Masters, came in again. He's back with a similar problem from last time.  
Kingston: OK, well, somebody needs to talk to him.  
Brennan: She hands you a chart and brings you over to a room. You see that this guy is in here. You see he's kind of a older, balding guy. He sort of looks like one of these New York guys. Just a neighborhood guy. He's got a thick mustache. Looks up and you see he goes:  
Lowell: OK. Look, I'll tell you exactly what happened.  
Kingston: Mm-hmmm.  
Lowell: So, it's pretty standard. So, I go around because in the subways and stuff, there's a lot of cool stuff down there. And I found this-- looked like some kind of bronze statue of a falcon or something like that. I thought I would pawn it for a little bit of money. But what I needed to do is I needed to varnish it, right? To get some of the rust off.  
Kingston: Mm-hmmm.  
Lowell: So I put some varnish on it. And then what happened was I was getting ready for a shower, so I was naked of course. You understand, right? And before I take a shower, I like to have a little bowl of cereal. Just something I like to do.  
Kingston: Lowell? I'ma stop you right now.  
Lowell: What happened is the cereal is up on a tall shelf--  
Kingston: Lowell?  
Lowell: So there's a stepladder to get up there--  
Kingston: Lowell! You got to stop coming in here, Lowell. You got to fix your life, all right, Lowell? Because I know for a fact-- Lowell, cut to the end of the story.  
Lowell: I fell off the ladder and the statue went up my butt.  
Kingston: Yep. Lowell, have you ever tried a therapist instead of a medical doctor?  
Lowell: No. What happened was it was an accident and it got up there.  
Kingston: Oh? OK, Lowell-- Lowell, this is the fourth time you've come up here with something in your butt. Let's be real right now, Lowell. Let's be real right now. Lowell, how many times have you come up here with stuff in your butt?  
Lowell: Four times.  
Kingston: Four times.  
[beat]  
We're gonna take the thing out your butt, I'm not saying I'm gonna deny you medical services. I'm just saying that you need to ask yourself some questions because I tell you--  
Lou: I get in real close.  
[soft music]  
Kingston: Ain't nothin' wrong with being kinky. I tell you that right now. I'm not kinky, but ain't nothin' wrong with bein' kinky. Alright? So, you want to be kinky, that's fine. Just be kinky safely, alright?  
Lowell: Yeah, but you mean that? That really--  
Kingston: 100%. Ain't nothing wrong with being a freak.  
[Emily and Brennan laugh]  
Lowell: You're a good man. You're a good man, nurse Brown. I appreciate that.  
Kingston: Of course.  
Lowell: You're a good man.  
Kingston: Of course. You're a--  
Lowell: I appreciate--  
Kingston: No, no. What were you gonna say?  
Lowell: I just-- no one's ever told me that before and I find a lot of this cool treasures and artifacts and stuff like that, and I put them up my butt, and it's never-- I just like the feeling of it going up there, knowing that someone put a lot of time and effort into this sort of thing, and--  
Kingston: Hey. Hey, I get it. You got some-- you like fucking artifacts, or having artifacts fuck you, or something like that. I'm not trying to get into it. That's your business. But you just need to figure out how you can do it safely because I'll tell you, it's expensive to come to the hospital. It's expensive. Stop paying all this money.  
Lowell: You know, money is no object for me because I do sell these artifacts afterwards.  
Kingston: Oh, for good money. What? I'm sorry, what? You selling--  
Lowell: No. No, no, no. I clean 'em, I clean 'em.  
Kingston: OK. You know what, Mr. Masters?  
Lowell: I better head out. I'm gonna--  
Kingston: You better head out.  
Lowell: I'm gonna get ready for the operation.  
Kingston: Of course.  
Brennan: It's great. It actually does look like a tremendous spiritual weight has been lifted from him. A weird, self-loathing is now gone. He seems sort of at peace.  
It's a couple hours later. You're talking with a buddy of yours. This is actually one of the many trolls that populate the rivers around New York City. It's a bridge and tunnel troll, so he's a buddy of yours who works under the George Washington Bridge. You see he's going:  
Troll: Thanks again, man. This is great. So, basically, I just-- I take this and the warts will start coming back?  
Kingston: Exactly, and if you wanna spend some more time around water, that wouldn't be a bad idea.  
Troll: OK. It's just hard. I haven't actually been in the river now 'cause the whole thing is it's all electronic these days.  
Kingston: I mean, exactly.  
Troll: Back in the old days, trolls would have to jump out and actually collect a toll--  
Kingston: Mm-hmmm.  
Troll: Or do a riddle or something.  
Kingston: Mm-hmmm.  
Troll: And now, you just solve the easy pass and whatever else.  
Kingston: Exactly. So, hey, that just means we've got to put in that extra effort. But there's time in the day. There's always time in the day. You just gotta find it.  
Troll: You're not wrong, man--  
[sound of doors swinging open]  
Brennan: Boom! Doors swing open and Ricky Matsui comes in with Pete the Plug under his arm.  
Kingston: Ricky!  
Pete: Put me down!  
Ricky: You're gonna be OK, sir.  
Kingston: Ricky, what's goin' on? Have y'all-- y'all two been jumpin' on buildings again?  
Ricky: I have.  
Kingston: Ricky, I told you to stop jumpin' on buildings.  
Ricky: You're right. I should be-- I can do it very carefully and I don't suggest many other people-- I've got a very sweet smelling man here.  
Pete: Excuse me?  
Kingston: I'm sorry, sweet smellin'?  
Pete: I don't know what you meant by that, but yeah, my tooth fell off and now it's a candy. Hey, how much is this gonna cost?  
Kingston: All right.  
Pete: Just walkin' through this door, I feel like I owe you $500.  
Kingston: All right. Well, money is not a--  
Lou: Can I pull them into a quiet room or a room that I know?  
Brennan: Kingston, you walk over to a supply closet and through the supply closet, a door that opens only to you, and the subway token around your neck glows bright, opens a room that you use for when people from the Unsleeping City come here opens to you. Pete, you see this weird magic door open up into this side chamber. Ricky, you've been in here before. You see your sister looks over at you as you're walking into it and says:  
Emiko: Ricky, what are you doing here?  
Ricky: Oh, my friend is Kingston, and we're gonna talk about--  
Kingston: Yeah, me and--  
Ricky: -- cars.  
Kingston: -- Ricky are friends. We like to bowl.  
Pete: How did that door open?  
Kingston: Oh!  
Brennan: You see that Emiko looks over and says:  
Emiko: What door?  
Brennan: And you look and see that the open door is covered in the same weird flickering shadow fire that I described from the guys before. And you see that Emiko cannot see the open door.  
Pete: Hospitals have so much money now. It's crazy.  
Ricky: You take--  
Kingston: I take him and we take-- great. Fantastic.  
Lou: I take Pete in the--  
Brennan: The doors close. Pete, you're in there with Kingston.  
Lou: Can I cast Detect Poison and Disease?  
Brennan: Yes, you can. You hold out your hand. You know that today is SantaCon. Normally, it's a little bit of a hassle to clean up all those clones. This is something you haven't seen before. This is a very virulent, dangerous thing. There is some kind of arcane virus that is turning this kid's bones into peppermint.  
Kingston: What happened to you?  
Pete: How much can I tell you? Can you turn me into the cops?  
Kingston: What? No. What are you talking about? We're in a magic room right now.  
Pete: I don't know. Look, man. OK, fine. I took some mushrooms.  
Kingston: You took some mushrooms?  
Pete: I took more than normal and then my dad floated away on a bubble and a man hit my face.  
Kingston: A man hit your face? Who hit your face?  
Pete: He bit my face.  
Kingston: A man bit your face. Who bit your face?  
Pete: It was after I pushed a happy face button, and I let it all out.  
Kingston: You let-- sorry. OK.  
Pete: Darkness.  
Kingston: Now, I need to understand. This disease looks like you were bitten by a Santa Claus?  
Pete: Mm-hmmm.  
Kingston: OK. Oh.  
Lou: Is there something I can do-- what can I do with what I know?  
Brennan: Give me a-- Because you had the spell up, so give me a medicine check with advantage because you're actively looking at it right now.  
Lou: Great. OK. So that's 22 and something that's not-- way less than 22.  
Brennan: Cool. You-- go ahead also and give me an arcana check.  
Lou: Great. 10.  
Brennan: OK. You ascertain what's going on. This kid has a magical disease that you think you can treat here in the room with what you've got.  
Lou: OK.  
Brennan: There is something much deeper and more profound, magically happening, that you don't think is an external virus. You think that there's something medical or otherwise going on with this kid-- period.  
Lou: Great. All right.  
Kingston: What's your name, son?  
Pete: Jeffrey.  
Kingston: All right, Jeffrey. I'm going to work on what is the problem right now, the thing that's got your teeth popping out.  
Pete: Yeah.  
Kingston: But we should talk after that 'cause--  
Pete: Yeah. Yeah.  
Kingston: There's something going on.  
Pete: OK. Yeah. I actually have a doctor. So if you could just tell me what you were gonna do.  
Kingston: Oh, yeah? Who's your doctor? I could pull your records. What's your doctor's name?  
Pete: He's a different kind of doctor-- you probably don't know him.  
Kingston: A different-- what's a different kind of doctor?  
Pete: He's just like-- he's probably not-- you don't know him. Different service.  
Kingston: Give me-- give it a shot.  
Pete: He doesn't work in a place like this, OK? He works--  
Kingston: Give it a shot. What's his name?  
Pete: Hm?  
Kingston: What's his name?  
Pete: Doctor-- Dr. Brinman.  
Kingston: Brinman?  
[Brennan wheezes like an old man]  
Pete: Doctor--  
Ally: I look at my bracelet. What does it say?  
Brennan: Dr. Lugash Primjitzki.  
Pete: It's Dr. Primjitzki.  
Kingston: Oh. Why didn't you say so?  
Pete: Really?  
Kingston: Of course!  
Pete: Oh, OK, good.  
Kingston: Works at the warehouse down in Brooklyn?  
Pete: Yes, yes.  
Kingston: Of course!  
Pete: Exactly.  
Kingston: Fantastic doctor.  
Pete: Above the popcorn machine.  
Kingston: Yes. Honestly, surprisingly good for working under the table like he does. That man could work in a hospital like this, walk away with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. But he's a good man.  
Pete: So much money, man.  
Kingston: I mean, what can I say? I'm speaking in hyperbole, as they say. No, he could make a lot of money. He's a good doctor. Anyway--  
Lou: Can I set to fixing the--  
Brennan: You put a syringe together. There's a lot of stuff in this room that is traditional medicine, mixed with stuff that is just some arcane tinctures, different things. There's like fucking basilisk venom in here and unicorn blood and all that crazy shit. You put a syringe together, alcohol swab the area. You administer it and Pete--  
[soft music]  
You feel the pain stop almost immediately. And not only that, but you feel a sense of Christmas cheer enter your body for a second and you still got that one peppermint tooth there. But other than that, it appears like you're healed or better.  
Ally: Oh, OK.  
Brennan: And you also feel a sense of-- there's a moment where, after you get the shot, you two feel something. Each of you guys roll a-- just a Wisdom check. Actually, you roll a charisma check, you roll a Wisdom check.  
Lou: Uh, 19.  
Ally: Over 20.  
Brennan: Ooh, awesome! As you are healed, you look up and you are looking at Pete and see this weird hallucinatory thing of bright lights, big city, marquee, and twirling gouts of colorful magic. You look at Kingston and see a golden light setting in between the rows of buildings, and this feeling of a golden light in the heart of a happy city full of people and neighbors all beating together in one heart. And your guys magic touches and steams, but then unites in some kind of helix and disappears.  
Kingston: The hell--  
Pete: Whoa!  
Kingston: Are you-- ?  
Pete: Get away from me!  
Kingston: What did you do to me?  
Pete: I don't know.  
Kingston: I've been doing this for 30 years, I've never seen nothing like that.  
Pete: Fuck! What's happening?  
Kingston: I don't know. Where did you come from?  
Pete: I don't know. I'm on a lot of meds right now, so maybe that was a weird combination.  
Kingston: OK.  
Brennan: Go ahead, roll actually just a History check for me.  
Lou: Oh, look at that. Over 20.  
Brennan: You know who can help you figure out whatever the fuck this is.  
Kingston: Oh, fantastic. You know, what are you doing today? You got some time?  
Pete: I was gonna-- yeah. I probably got some--  
Kingston: I've got a friend who could help us understand what's going on right now.  
Pete: OK, is it that weird buff dude?  
Kingston: No, it's not that weird buff dude, but he's probably gonna come along. He's-- I don't know. What do you think of him?  
Pete: I feel like he would bully me.  
Kingston: Nah, he's a nice dude. He's a nice dude. A little dumb. Very nice.  
Pete: He's like a golden retriever.  
Kingston: Mmm, I like that. I haven't heard that one before.  
Brennan: You guys step outside. Ricky, your sister's going:  
Emiko: --That NY One interview. Look, a lot of my friends are single. It would be easy.  
Ricky: Yeah. I just-- you know-- I appreciate that. I'm just looking for someone that has a certain-- your friends are nice, but I'm just kind of focusing on my career right now.  
Emiko: Fine, fine, fine.  
Brennan: You guys walk out. You see Kingston and Pete. Pete looks healthy again. And you guys take off into the snow. Heh, heh. Bod a boom, bod a bam!  
The snow whirls out as Kingston, Ricky, and Pete all head out from there, up into the sky, settling down, Wollman Rink, a ice skating rink filled with happy people enjoying their winter days. We cut to the dumpster behind it to see something or someone rummaging through it. Gavin will you Please Describe your character for us.  
[Image of a Hobo pops up on the screen with a makeshift weapon]  
Gavin: I am playing Jack Talbot, and Jack is a six foot tall muscled man with his weapon a branch with a sharpened can on the end of it. He is currently looking for food that would be thrown out so he can eat for tonight. Jack feels crazy sometimes because when he has to fight to survive or because some of the street sweeper comes by his anger transforms him into a beast or a monster.  
Brennan: Go ahead and roll investigate for me if you would.  
Gavin: Oh Nice that will be a 19.  
Brennan: You find stale granola bars, thrown out half drunk soda, and a pair of broken ice skates blades and shoes.  
Jack: Good haul today, I might be able to hold off for a week or so before heading back out for more.  
Gavin: Ok Jack will hop out of the dumpster and start to head back to my set up in central park.  
Brennan: Roll perception as you get out of the dumpster.  
Gavin: Yikes that is a 5.  
Brennan: Well as you hop out of the dumpster and start to head towards your tent. A group of people stumble down the entrance towards you. What does Jack do?  
Gavin: Ah he will try to intimidate them and once given an opening will try to dash.  
Brennan: Roll intimidation and Athletic  
Gavin: That is a 4 for the intimidate and a nat 20 for the athletics.  
Jack: You guys don’t wanna do this. [Then he bullrushes them knocking all of them over as he makes his escape through Central Park. Resting right beside a sled.]  
Brennan:As Jack is Resting. His eyes get heavy and he passes out right in front of the sleigh.  
Brennan: Alright let's cut to another player. The Snow drifts around Jack and flies up and zooms towards a different part of Central Park, in the middle of one of the streets that crosses the park down through the manhole cover to water that melts into the dank, grimy, filthy, subway tunnels of New York City. A couple of MTA workers, with their lanterns up, pick away at the side of the wall, doing some repairs from water damage. And one of them says:  
Wally: I'm telling you guys I seen it. It was this size-- it was this freaking big. It was the size of a freaking dog, I swear to God.  
MTA worker: Shut the fuck up, Wally. You did not see a rat the size of a dog.  
Wally: I swear to God I did. It was huge! The thing was fucking enormous! It was all-- I don't know. When it came out, I said, I see it going, "Ah!" and it looked-- and it looked right at me, and I swear to God, it smiled!  
Brennan: He says,  
MTA worker: You're fucking crazy. You're always talking about rats and fucking rat kings.  
Wally: Rat kings are real! You guys-- you better wake up 'cause rat kings are real! They live in the sewers. They're all tied together by their tails. It's real.  
Brennan: So, the guys walk away and say,  
MTA worker: Wally, you're a fucking idiot.  
Brennan: Walk away, Wally goes,  
Wally: You know, you say that now, but--  
[music playing]  
Brennan: From the steel rafters overhead, hidden in darkness, is our friend Kugrash. Murph, could you please describe Kugrash for us?  
Murph: Yes. I'm Kugrash. I look like a fucked-up Master Splinter. I've got a hooked humpback, I'm about two feet tall. I'm a rat man. I've got a rusty metal staff that looks like a pipe, and then I wear rags made out of discarded MTA employee clothes. And I live in the subway tunnels and I take care of the discarded people of New York, and the little beasts and the cockroaches. I am the shit that feeds the flies. A dumpster druid.  
Brennan: Kugrash, you look down at Wally, who goes,  
Wally: OK. You guys believe what you want, but I know what I saw.  
Kugrash: Hey, Wally.  
Wally: Aah! Who's there? Jesus? [a beat] Jesus Christ?  
Murph: I just make some chittering sound.  
Wally: You turned into a rat. It's a miracle. Wherever you are, Rat Jesus, I love you.  
Kugrash: [to himself] Such a sweet man.  
Brennan: Kugrash, it's the day of SantaCon. You're scampering around. What are you getting up to on a day like today?  
Murph: I think [switches into Kugrash voice] we are absolutely fucked this year. We are fucked every year. We are not prepared. [switches out of Kugrash voice] I'm trying to find homeless people and get them indoors and things like that.  
Brennan: You scurry around. You find a couple of guys. Some of the homeless who have been around long enough actually can see you now and know who you are. A couple of them-- you show up with food for them. They go,  
Homeless person: Oh, Kugrash. Thanks, pal.  
Kugrash: Yeah, a lot of this stuff people just-- a lot of this stuff is bread from restaurants. People take it in their takeout bags. They think they're going to eat it and they don't eat the bread, but it's still good bread. I eat the real shitty stuff. You can have the good stuff.  
Homeless person: I appreciate it, man. It's real nice of you.  
Brennan: Had some bread-- you're skipping around, go ahead, give me an Investigate check.  
Murph: Sure. Not great. 11.  
Brennan: You've been looking around. Normally, in this insane day where all these fucking mutant Santas fill the Unsleeping City and regular humans only see it as a pub crawl, but all the magical denizens of New York know that it's this weird thing where a bunch of gross mutants bumble around until they get cleaned up.  
You normally find a bag of hot cocoa and treats and stuff from Santa Claus that he leaves for you to distribute to homeless people and things like that. It's getting later in the day and you haven't found it yet. [eerie music] And you haven't heard from him at all, which is weird.  
Kugrash: Santa, you fucking bum. Where the hell are you, dude? Where the hell is this dude?  
Brennan: As you're scurrying around though, you see an unconscious Sofia passed out in some garbage, a little bit covered in snow.  
Kugrash: You gotta be kidding. People just-- we just walking past this. We just see somebody passed out. She's using a trash bag as a sleeping bag. We're just gonna-- ? All right. Everybody's walking-- all right. I'll do it.  
Murph: I see that she's missing her shoes. And I guess I probably have a little pack of little plastic bags and things with me, so I make her some makeshift plastic bag shoes with rubber bands.  
Brennan: Incredible. Sofia, you wake up with new plastic shoes--  
Sofia: Oh my god.  
Brennan:-- and maybe a little bit of food next to you. And you see you're incredibly hungover. And you see for the first time, through sober eyes, Kugrash in front of you.  
Kugrash: Oh, hey, it's you again.  
Sofia: Oh my god. Are you real?  
Kugrash: We hung-- we talked about your ex-husband for like a while-- Dale.  
Sofia: I know.  
Kugrash: For three hours, you and I hung out.  
Sofia: I know. I have that memory. I just thought that maybe it was too many wine coolers.  
Kugrash: You were insanely drunk. But you can hold it. You were having a conversation.  
Sofia: I'm sorry. Are you a rat?  
Kugrash: Sort of, I am a rat man.  
Sofia: Is this a SantaCon outfit? Oh, you're in a SantaCon outfit. I don't understand it thematically.  
Kugrash: Do not compare me to those fucks. All right?  
Sofia: Oh, OK.  
Kugrash: I gave you--  
Sofia: Someone from outside of New York comes in and everyone hates them. Is that what it is because they're from New Jersey?  
Kugrash: What happened to your face? You got punched?  
Sofia: Yeah, but I mean, you should see the other guy-- is what Dale used to say.  
Kugrash: Were they SantaCon-- ? Oh my, Dale again.  
Emily: [breaking] Yeah.  
Kugrash: Were they SantaCon guys?  
Sofia: No. It was-- I mean, my memory's a little hazy, but it was these guys and they  
were messing with these girls. And then I got in the way, and I made sure the girls were taken care of.  
Kugrash: That's good, you know, there's not enough people like that anymore.  
Sofia: Yeah. And they were tall. They were really tall. I'll leave it at that.  
Brennan: Kugrash, you see two little cockroaches out in this cold weather, which is crazy, skittering across a railing very, very fast. And you see that they have two little hobo sacks over their shoulder and are skittering along a railing.  
Kugrash: Hey, Fred! Marty!  
Cockroach: Hey, what's going on, buddy?  
Kugrash: Where are you guys going?  
Cockroach: We're getting the fuck out of here!  
Kugrash: Oh, yeah. SantaCon? Did you see what happened to this lady?  
Cockroach: No, not SantaCon. Some shit just went down at the park.  
Kugrash: Some shit just went down at the park?  
Cockroach: Yeah, it was crazy.  
Kugrash: Well, fuck me. What happened at the park?  
Cockroach: I don't know. There was like-- what do you call it? There was a horse carriage but with no wheels. It was just the carriage part, no wheels on it. And there was a bunch of horses that had these big fucking tumors coming out of their head.  
Kugrash: Reindeer, yeah. They're-- Santa. You've certainly-- you've--  
Cockroach: What?  
Kugrash: Santa!  
Cockroach: No. These horses had fucked-up tumors coming out of their fucking head!  
Kugrash: It's called-- it's called a reindeer!  
Cockroach: What?  
Kugrash: Don't worry about it. I don't need to teach you about--  
Cockroach: There were these fucked-up horses with big fuck--  
Kugrash: So Santa is in the park?  
Cockroach: Well, I don't know 'cause it was like a blast of green light and shit like that. And a fucking horse just took off. I hope to go see a doctor because he's fucking--  
Kugrash: [incredulously] Is Santa dead? Did somebody shoot Santa?  
Cockroach: I don't know, dude! I'm not-- I'm not religious.  
Kugrash: All right. Thanks. Thanks, Fred. Thanks, Marty.  
Cockroach: Take care, bud.  
Brennan: And you see the two cockroaches--  
Sofia: I'm sorry--  
Kugrash: Santa Claus is real and he's dead.  
Sofia: OK. I'm sorry. Rewind. You just made cockroach noises. You just hissed at some cockroaches who hissed back at you for what looked like a conversation. I mean, they gestured and everything.  
Kugrash: Yeah, well, we just made cock--  
Sofia: And then you said something to me about Santa?  
Kugrash: We were just making bug noises for a full minute.  
Sofia and Kugrash: [together] Yeah.  
Kugrash: Yeah. So I understand animals and they understand me. Some of it I picked up over the years.  
Sofia: From being an animal.  
Kugrash: I'm a rat man. We should go to the park. Santa might be dead.  
Sofia: [defeated] Why not?  
[cast laughs]  
Sofia: Let me get a walk me down and we can go.  
Kugrash: You know what? Why not? I'll have some too. I can't go in there. I'm a rat.  
Sofia: Right. Sean? Sean?  
Brennan: You see that Sean literally picks the iron up.  
Sean: Jesus Christ, you're wearing the same clothes as last night.  
Sofia: Is it a different day?  
Sean: It's a full different day, yeah.  
Sofia: Give me a couple of Mike's Hard.  
[Brennan wheezes like an old man again]  
Kugrash: Don't!  
Sean: You want that-- you want that in a coffee cup?  
Sofia: Can I get one of those buckets that you put the Coronas in?  
Sean: Full of Mike's Hards?  
Sofia: Yeah. Like a painter's bucket.  
Sean: I'll see if we got a box.  
Brennan: He goes downstairs. Minutes later, you are walking down the street with a full bucket full of hard lemonade.  
Murph: I crack one.  
Emily: I'm swinging it.  
Kugrash: I'm Kugrash, by the way. I don't know if you remember--  
Sofia: Kugrash.  
Kugrash: Sofia, right? Yeah.  
Sofia: I'm Sofia Lee-- Bicicleta.  
Kugrash: Lee. Yeah. We've met.  
Sofia: Yeah. I am sorry that I don't remember you.  
Kugrash: It's OK.  
Sofia: But I will remember you now because I'm very sober right now. In fact, somewhat sick.  
Kugrash: Yeah, let's get a little fucked up and go see if Santa's dead, huh?  
Sofia: I think that sounds good.  
Kugrash: Alright.  
Brennan: You guys head over to the park. Each of you guys make an investigate check for me. Feel free if you want to cast any magic as well to do that.  
Murph: I got a 4.  
Emily: 9.  
Brennan: 4 and 9. You guys wander around in the park for a while.  
Emily: But do we find a hot dog stand?  
Brennan: You guys for sure find a hot dog stand. You see the guy says:  
Hot dog vendor: Hey, boss. I get you a hot dog? Hot dog?  
Kugrash: [hesitantly] Yeah.  
Sofia: Yeah.  
Murph: I lower my face so no one sees I'm a rat.  
Sofia: I got him, I got him. Two hot dogs, thank you.  
Brennan: Puts two hot dogs there. See, he goes:  
Hot dog vendor: It's crazy 'cause there was a-- I don't know if you guys heard, there was a fight out in the promenade past here a little while ago.  
Sofia: Oh, yeah?  
Hot dog vendor: Yeah.  
Brennan: He points through some--  
Sofia: Who was getting into it?  
Brennan: He points through some hedges heading off towards Belvedere Castle, where the woods get a little thicker in the park.  
Sofia: Mmm. Hey, you want to go hiking?  
Kugrash: Yeah, let's go into the bushes.  
Sofia: Yeah.  
Kugrash: Yeah.  
Brennan: You guys head into the bushes. Give me a nature check.  
Murph: OK. I'm a little bit better at that. 22!  
Brennan: You go through the skittering thing. You see some squirrels.  
Squirrel: Oh, hey there, Kugrash!  
Kugrash: Hey, what's up? What's up, Lenny?  
Lenny: Oh, nothing much. Christmas time. You know, it's easy to go--  
Kugrash: Yeah, yeah, Christmas.  
Lenny: We love Christmas.  
Kugrash: It's fucking wonderful, man.  
Lenny: I stole someone's keys.  
Kugrash: You stole-- ? Why the fuck? Lenny.  
Lenny: Who knows?  
Kugrash: You fucking sociopath, give me the keys.  
Lenny: Fuck you, dude.  
Kugrash: Dude, fuck you. No. Why?  
Brennan: Takes off through the branches.  
Kugrash: Lenny, you fucking cock. He's a dickhead. Fucking squirrel just steals shit and puts it in their trees.  
Sofia: I'm sorry. Once again, rewind. There was a bunch of gesticulation.  
Kugrash: Oh, he told me to-- he said fuck you. He ran off.  
Sofia: Yeah, I saw he had a set of keys on him.  
Kugrash: He just took 'em!  
Brennan: You guys arrive in a clearing. [eerie music] You see that there is an enormous, polished red sleigh. The area where reindeer would be attached to the sleigh has been severed, there is a giant glove box torn out of the front of the sleigh, and a man is lying unconscious in front of the sleigh. And there are things scattered throughout. It looks like people have been like rummaging through the sleigh here.  
You see that there is peppermint-smelling blood, white and red blood spattered everywhere around here. You see that there are also a number of small, little green ivy leaves. With that 22 nature check, these leaves are not from the Waking World. These are from Nod, the Sixth Borough. These are-- in fact, with a 22, you smell them. This is fairy magic that happened here. Maybe not the peppermint blood, but there's fairy magic happening here.  
Kugrash: Oh, it is the goddamn pixies.  
Sofia: What? I thought this is just a place kids take pictures with Santa.  
Kugrash Do you see what-- ? They mugged Santa, they stole all of his shit.  
Sofia: OK, again. Santa’s real and you're a rat.  
Kugrash: Santa’s-- the pixies did this!  
Sofia: OK.  
Kugrash: Those sons of bitches. They're serious. This is bad. Santa's fucked.  
Sofia: All right.  
Kugrash: We are fucked.  
Sofia: I'm just going with this ride. All right, yeah.  
Brennan: You notice that there is a little glyph carved into the wood at the front of the sleigh that looks like it was broken somehow. It's some fairy shit that you don't know about, but you do know who does.  
Kugrash: I think I know somebody who might be able to read this bullshit, whatever the fuck this is.  
Sofia: Yeah, this is-- this isn't Greek or anything like that.  
Kugrash: Oh, you speak Greek?  
Sofia: No, but I mean, I'm Catholic so I've encountered Greek in a religious sense.  
Kugrash: That's good.  
Sofia: Yeah.  
Jack: My Head. Where am I and Kugrash is that you.  
Kugrash: Yeah Jack. What happened to you.  
Jack: I was going through the dumpster by Wollman and saw a couple people coming at me so I was running towards my set up back in the tunnel when I stopped for a breather and kinda passed out for no reason.  
Brennan: Hell yeah. So you take off from there.  
Murph: Yeah, I'll take off for--  
Brennan: You guys both head out from there. No need to roll.  
The snow kicks off from the park and whisks all the way downtown, past Columbus Circle from all the way to Broadway, where we see a line of fans clamoring and cheering, holding their Playbills from different shows because they're in line for a show that actually hasn't opened yet. They were lucky enough to see some previews for Midsummer Nights, a musical version of Shakespeare's classic, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Why not take the bard's original plays and make them a musical?  
The Times Square billboards show all of the signs for the show coming up. The fans are out in the cold in the snow, waiting. The stage door opens with a dramatic swing. And Siobhan, could you please describe your character for us?  
Siobhan: Darlings, sweeties. I'm Misty Moore. I'm a Broadway diva, lover of music, lover of energy, lover of dance and light and stars and music and brilliance. I'm-- well, a lady would never say her age, so I won't. I'm four foot something, maybe 5'1" in a beautiful high heel. Always wear a tap shoe, even outside. And I'm just loving life, loving love.  
Brennan: You step out. The crowd erupts into cheers. Your assistant Alyssa and your pianist Benjamin are behind you. They walk out.  
Fans: Aah! Misty, Misty, Misty!  
Brennan: You see that there is a girl with pigtails and braces, clearly some 16-year-old, Midwestern girl. She goes:  
Girl: Oh my god, Misty Moore! This is a poster of the original cast recording company.  
Misty: Oh my goodness, I haven't seen one of these in years. I mean, obviously, I have the one in my apartment, which is signed by all of the cast. But this-- a blank one. Oh, I haven't seen one in years.  
Girl: Oh, [INAUDIBLE] incredible. We just saw the show. We were lucky enough to go see it. You were amazing!  
Misty: Oh, I'm so glad, I'm so glad, I'm so blessed and honored to do this work. You know, for people like you, I don't do it for me, I do it for people like you.  
Brennan: As you say that, you see that her and the other young girls and boys around her all are just salivating. You see that they all say back there:  
Fans: My favorite song of yours-- I actually did one of your songs and I did it in the way you did it-- when it was in-- the high school play that I did it.  
[eerie music]  
Brennan: A burgeoning, sweet silvery, golden pink, and purple light begins to come off of them. And though they cannot see it, you certainly can. And up into your nostrils. And you feel like a million bucks.  
Misty: You know, as actors, all of us. Us actors, we're just--  
Fans: We’re-- You put us in the word "we" with yourself! Blah!  
Brennan: They just go fucking nuts. You see Alyssa bends over as you're signing stuff. And you see she says:  
Alyssa: Obviously, of course, take as much time as you need, Ms. Moore, but we do have an appointment. There's an interview happening back at your penthouse.  
Misty: How do you spell Rebecca, darling? I don't want to spell it wrong.  
Rebecca: Oh my god, you know, R-E-B-E-C-C-A. Some people call me Becca, some people call me Rebecca, I wish to do things better, I don't know for a stage name. I haven't signed up for that yet. I really wanna-- I really wanna move to New York. Do you think that's a bad idea?  
Misty: Everybody should move to New York. But you know, some people should leave. But you don't know until you get here, darling.  
Rebecca: I can't wait to come here!  
Brennan: Again, you just see these little silvery sparks come off of them and you feel amazing. You leave from this place. You head back to your wonderful penthouse.  
Siobhan: I pour myself a Vodka on the rocks.  
Brennan: You see Benjamin looks over you and says:  
Benjamin: Really, you asked how to spell Rebecca? How many times have you spelled Rebecca in your life?  
Misty: I don't know. Some people are weird and there's an H in there. [INAUDIBLE]  
Benjamin: I guess you're right.  
Brennan: You walk into your penthouse. Huge entire walls are just glass windows. Central Park South, looking out over the park. Alyssa comes over and brings a reporter in from some entertainment magazine.  
Reporter: Hi, Ms. Moore. I'll be doing the interview with you today. So, a pleasure to meet you. Talk to me about working with Perry LaFev again.  
Misty: Perry, my darling Perry. It's such an honor. It's been such a time since we've worked together. Oh, he's such a beautiful director. You know, just a beautiful man. And we sit and we really dig into this work. We dig into it together. And we're really creating this character because obviously, we all know the Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. It's, for so many people, the first Shakespeare that anybody does. But we're really trying to take a new twist on it. A really new bent on this character of Titania.  
Brennan: Writing all this down, he says:  
Reporter: And you're gonna be playing Titania.  
Misty: Yes, I am Titania, queen of the fairies, who, obviously in the original play, has a smaller role. But I really feel like we've beefed it up. And I'm not a young woman anymore, but I really feel like I can hold myself on that stage. And well, I don't want to spoil it too much for the fans, but I think they're in for a surprise.  
Brennan: As you say that, you are no longer a young woman--  
[soft music]  
You look down at your hand and you do in fact see some liver spots, some light things here. And you can feel something twinge inside you. It's been maybe 40 or 50 years since the last time you did it, and you can feel this body starting to tell you that the time is fast approaching.  
Siobhan: Yeah. But that's showbiz!  
Brennan: You continue talking in this interview. You're having your lovely little vodka. One of them from the preview went smashingly. You suddenly hear a noise coming from the boiler. You have one of those things where you have your own heating and own everything so you don't have to deal with anyone else. But a little hall closet door opens up and an air vent pops out. Kugrash and Sofia--  
Sofia: Oh my god, you are a trip to hang out.  
Kugrash: This is the real New York.  
Jack: Where are we?  
Sofia: I'm loving it. This is where I belong.  
Misty: [hurriedly] So anyway, I am so terribly sorry, but I do have a show at 8:00. So Alyssa?  
Alyssa: Oh, sorry. Coming right now, I'm so sorry. I will-- that will not happen again.  
Misty: Yes. No, it won't.  
[Ally and Brennan laughing]  
Brennan: You see that she-- she comes over and says:  
Alyssa: That's all. Ms. Moore needs her vocal rest. Thank you so much. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.  
Brennan: She ushers him out. You turn around. Your beautiful, cream white carpets are decked with filth as Kugrash walks in with Sofia.  
Sofia: Oh, my god, Kug, is that Misty Moore?  
Kugrash: Yeah. It's Misty.  
Jack: [Shuffles awkwardly]  
Sofia: [gasps]  
Kugrash: Hey, Misty, it's good to see you again.  
Sofia: I saw you in Kinky Boots!  
Misty: You did?  
Sofia: Oh my god.  
Misty: Oh, what a beautiful show.  
Sofia: You radiated. You made that show.  
Misty: Oh, thank you so much. It's such a beautiful story. You know, it's so important.  
Sofia: The boots.  
Misty: Oh, I love those boots. So kinky.  
Kugrash: [together with Misty] They're so kinky.  
Sofia: They're so kinky.  
Kugrash: Hey, Misty. We think Santa might be dead. Do you know what this weird pixie shit is?  
Murph: And I guess-- do-- could I have taken-- was it on the sleigh?  
Brennan: It was, but you could have made-- it was on the glove compartment door. You could have broken it off.  
Murph: OK. OK. It has saliva all over it. I ripped it out with my mouth.  
Misty: Oh.  
Kugrash: Yeah. You wanna read that? Do you need to take a closer-- ? No?  
Misty: Why don't you put it down on the coffee table right here? Yes, the pixies, the park pixies? Don Confetti and all of his people?  
Kugrash: Yes. I think we found--  
Misty: I hate that little man.  
Kugrash: Yeah.  
Siobhan: Can I read it? What do I read?  
Brennan: You can absolutely read it. Let me know if you're doing any magic or stuff to it. Or, you can go ahead and make either an arcana check--  
Siobhan: I mean, if it's seelie, I speak seelie.  
Brennan: Yeah, it is seelie.  
Siobhan: Great. Then I can just read it. I can also do an arcana check, but my arcana level is-- [in Misty's voice] darling, I don't study magic. I just am magic.  
Brennan: You look at it. [serious music] You recognize one element of this, which is immediately troubling to you. This is a clear fae rune. All it is about, basically, is about breaking a ward on something, breaking magical wards, which would make sense 'cause Santa's sleigh would be warded beyond imagination.  
The thing that gave this the juice to work though, 'cause normally a fairy, especially some fucking pixies, would not be able to crack into Santa's sleigh. There's something being invoked here. And hidden within the rune, you recognize something. You don't know what it is or can't read it. It's an infernal rune. You--  
Misty: [sighs] Well, there's something pretty nasty. You know that religious-- it's one of those religious ones.  
Kugrash: Sure.  
Misty: You know what? It's written in seelie, but this is some dark, nasty stuff. Just--  
Kugrash: Some devil shit.  
Misty: Yeah, infernal, nasty hell plane.  
Brennan: Misty, you look at the rune again. You don't read infernal, but you do know who does.  
Misty: I think I know who could help us out with this nasty little situation. Maybe I'll put you in a blanket and carry you over the rest.  
Kugrash: Sure. Yeah.  
Murph: I jump into her arms.  
Misty: OK. This was OK. It's fine.  
Kugrash: It's like a baby bjorn.  
Misty: It's Miu Miu. It's not Prada.  
Kugrash: Yeah. Heh.  
Misty: It's Miu Miu. It's not Prada.  
Gavin: Jack will say to Misty  
Jack: I can hold him if you want.  
Misty: That would be lovely.  
Siobhan: Misty will hand Kugrash to Jack.  
Emily: I'm just going through your drawers. I'm like,  
Sofia: God, this place is so nice.  
Brennan: Incredible. You guys take off. Snow kicks off from Central Park West. We follow the snow through the air as it wends its way, two gusts of snow as Ricky, Kingston, and Pete, and Sofia, Misty, Jack, and Kugrash converge on the steps of the public library by Bryant Park. You guys-- there's snow everywhere, taxis-- busy day. It's getting into the mid-afternoon. And you guys spot each other in these two groups.  
Misty: Kingston! Darling!  
Jack: Kingston. Are you good?  
Kugrash: Kingston, how's it going, man?  
Kingston: Misty, Kugrash, Jack, what's going on, guys?  
Sofia: I'm so sorry. Are you Mr. March?  
Ricky: Oh, yes. That's me.  
Sofia: Oh my god. The girls at the beauty salon are gonna flip. Can I take a selfie with you?  
Ricky: Yeah, of course.  
Kingston: Also, guys, this is Jeffrey. Jeffrey, this is--  
Sofia: Oh my god.  
Kugrash: Jeffrey.  
Kugrash and Pete: [together] Hey.  
Pete: What's up?  
Kugrash: Good to meet you. I'm Kugrash.  
Sofia: Oh, my god.  
Pete: Are you a rat?  
Kugrash: I'm a rat man, yeah.  
Pete: I'm sorry if that was rude.  
[scary music]  
Brennan: Pete, the mushrooms are done. You're fully so-- you know that you're sober. You know that you're sober. The degree to which this is all a fun little trip is fully leaving you, especially after whatever that shot Kingston gave you was. And suddenly, you hear a booming voice to your right go:  
Booming voice: Well, well, well. Would you wish to enter?  
Brennan: One of the huge stone lions turns and is speaking directly at you guys. You hear a voice to your left.  
Stone lion: I think they do wish to enter. [laughs] Hello! Good to see you again.  
Kugrash: Hey.  
Misty: If you're going to ask us which one of you lies and which one of you tells the truth, we can skip it. We know.  
Stone lion: Both of us always lie.  
Misty: Yes, we know! That's the trick!  
Kingston: Exactly. We're not trying to play these games.  
Stone lion: Oh, let's play some games! We guard the library. We are the guardians of the Gramercy Occult Society. Hello. Ooh, a new face. Hello, I am Orlando and this is my boyfriend, Rovias.  
Pete: OK, look, you guys, this was really nice. But I don't really have time for a puzzle room kind of thing.  
Sofia: I do! I love this!  
Kingston: All right.  
Ricky: I'm not very good at them, but I can definitely try my hardest, guys.  
Orlando: Welcome, welcome, welcome.  
Brennan: You guys see that the two stone lions laugh and are joking with you guys a bit. They go:  
Orlando and Rovias: Well, what business brings you here to the Gramercy Occult Society?  
Kingston: We need to talk down to Alejandro.  
Orlando and Rovias: Very well. Then talk to him you shall. Let none bar the entry of these companions!  
[sound of stone grinding]  
Brennan: And you see that a secret stone door opens at diagonal in the steps of the library going down.  
Misty: Can I just say? You've been working on your voices and you sound great.  
Stone lion: You know, that vocal coach came by. We got-- Thank you.  
Misty: Really good. Really love it. It's really impress-- just since the last time we spoke. It's great.  
Stone lion: It's hard 'cause our diaphragms are made of stone.  
Ricky: What did you use to sound like?  
Stone lion: Hm?  
Ricky: What did you use to sound like?  
Stone lion: [raspy voice] We used to sound like this.  
Ricky: Awesome.  
Kugrash: Santa Claus is dead, everyone.  
Kingston: Let's go.  
Pete: What?  
Kugrash: Well, maybe.  
Misty: Oh, well, OK, let's go!  
[curious music playing]  
Brennan: You guys walk down into the Gramercy Occult Society, the New York Public Library. You go down the steps and the steps immediately MC Escher-- so that you're sideways, upside down, going through their doors. And you arrive in an upside down library where the gravity has been reversed. So you know that your heads are pointed away from the sky, but it looks totally normal to you. Huge, tall libraries everywhere, covered in books. And you see that a very old, extremely rotund man walks out.  
He's got a big white mustache, a little flat cap, and comes out to talk to you guys. He has the warmest eyes. Just looks like a extremely gregarious guy, but he's definitely well into his 90's. You see that this is your friend, Alejandro.  
Kingston: Alejandro, what's goin' on, man?  
Alejandro: [elderly accented voice] Oh, Kingston Brown. It is so good to see you again, my friend.  
Kingston: Good to see you as well. Hey, well, we have a situation. My man over here, Jeffrey, got some kind of Santa disease. And I don't know-- what are y'all here for?  
Misty: Oh, well, uh-- mmm.  
Kugrash: Yes. We found Santa's sleigh abandoned.  
Kingston: What?  
Kugrash: Jack passed out in front.  
Kingston: What?  
Kugrash: Reindeers gone.  
Kingston: What?  
Kugrash: Some sort of attack from the pixies--  
Ricky: [devastated] No!  
Kugrash: I've found some little pixie mixed in-- Santa is real. You know that. Yeah. Yeah.  
Misty: Oh, yes. Oh, Santa's real-- is he-- ? How many people here are new?  
Kingston: Who's new?  
Pete: What the fuck is going on?  
Sofia: I don't know, but I love it.  
Kingston: Jeffrey, I think is pretty--  
Ricky: His name is Peter, I think.  
Kingston: What?  
Pete: What? What, did you check my bracelet when I was out, man?  
Ricky: Yeah. It was dangling in my face while I was running.  
Pete: You run so fast.  
Brennan: You see--  
Kugrash: It said something infernal on it.  
Brennan: Alejandro looks at you and says:  
Alejandro: Wait a minute. You are being serious? Santa Claus is missing right now?  
Kugrash: Yeah, and somebody left behind some kind of infernal rune.  
Misty: Yeah, I couldn't read it. It's all infernal to me right now.  
Brennan: You see he says:  
Alejandro: We've been getting some strange reports. Hold on.  
Brennan: He touches a bookcase and a shimmering thing of light appears over it. And you see that there are two twin young women. They look about 17-years-old. They are clearly Alejandro's granddaughters. You might recognize them. But you see he says:  
Alejandro: Anna, Amelia, what is wrong?  
Brennan: Because they are clearly injured. You see that the two of them say:  
Anna and Amelia: Grandpa, we're out here fighting. There's-- Something's wrong. These SantaCon clones, they're not like normal. They're really dangerous. A bunch of them are coming. We think they're coming from Times Square.  
Sofia: OK. This is the first thing I think I can do to help. I know how to fight.  
Kingston: All right.  
Sofia: I don't know what the fuck else is going on, but I can fight.  
Brennan: Alejandro looks and says:  
Alejandro: Anna, Amelia, get to safety right now. Hold on.  
Brennan: And you see that all of these little running trains and subway cars of light appear and draw this insane subway map rune in front of Alejandro, and he pushes it past you. And it scans you. And he grabs the light, condenses it in his hand, and says:  
Alejandro: I'm going to see what is going on. If my granddaughters are in trouble, that means that things have gotten very bad indeed. They are very proficient wizards. All right? [a beat] Wizards.  
Ally: I've been holding my gun this whole time, but in incognito.  
Alejandro: What? You think I don't know that you're strapped?  
Pete: Mmm?  
Alejandro: Give it a shot. See what happen. Why don't you give it a shot?  
Ricky: I'm going to ask that you don't do it--  
Kugrash: Just fully don't. Fully don't do it.  
Misty: Oh, please do it. I love it when people do this. Go ahead. Oh, I love it.  
Ricky: Hey, Peter? Hey, Peter? Hey, Peter? Put the gun down. Hey, Peter? Put the gun down.  
Pete: Is this a joke, though? Who are you guys working for?  
Misty: No, no, he can do it.  
Ally: Bam!  
Brennan: You see a little shield appears in front of him and he says:  
Misty: [under her breath] So cool.  
Alejandro: You think I'm going to walk around-- I've been a wizard in New  
York City for 65 years? You think a bullet is going to do the trick?  
Pete: I--  
[music playing]  
Alejandro: Listen to me. You have been awakened into the Unsleeping City. There is a world behind a world. New York is a place of magic. In this realm, the city that never sleeps, the dream world and the waking world commingle, intertwine, and in certain places, become one. I do not know why it has happened. We will find out in due time. But you are now here in the Unsleeping City with all of us. Magic is real and you better get your fucking shit together or it's going to be a real bad look.  
Pete: [whispers] Oh. Epic.  
Brennan: You see he says,  
Alejandro: I will study this. Make your way to Time Square as soon as you can.  
Brennan: And he turns around and disappears.  
Zac: I just start running to--  
Ricky: Let's go, guys!  
Kugrash: I feel like there's a faster way for us to get there.  
Kingston: We don't need to run.  
Ricky: Right. Sorry. OK.  
Sofia: I'll just chase Mr. March.  
Brennan: You guys head off. You walk out. Kingston, you look out and you see your bus pulls up.  
Lou: Fantastic.  
Brennan: You see Suzette opens it and says:  
Suzette: Kingston, you're downtown now.  
Kingston: Yeah. We need to get to Times Square, pronto.  
Brennan: You see, she looks and for a second, she looks like, "No way  
is that on my route." But she says,  
Suzette: Oh, I got mixed up. I'm on the wrong route. That's right, Times Square, next stop, Times Square. Bing bing!  
Brennan: And a trafficless street opens up as Kingston gets on the bus. You guys take off.  
As you pull into Times Square, you see that Times Square is empty.  
Ally: [disgusted] Ooh.  
Brennan: Covered in snow and ice.  
Emily: This is like The Walking Dead.  
Brennan: In the center is an enormous, icy cocoon. A chrysalis of ice. And you look and see swarming SantaCon clones.  
Mutant Santas: Ho, ho, ho.  
Brennan: The bus pulls away, and I'm gonna need all of you to roll initiative.  
[music playing]  
Brennan: That's all for this episode of The Unsleeping City. Tune in next week, and we'll catch you guys then. [Donnie Brasco voice] Forget about it.  
[NEXT EPISODE - Episode 2: Mutant Santa Melee]  
[NEXT TIME ON DIMENSION 20]  
Brennan: Strange, icy fortress and these horrifying mutated Santa clones all going,  
Mutant Santas: [garbled] Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. Christmas. Christmas.  
Lou: This is horrifying.  
Ally: What's the worst thing that could happen in a wild magic surge?  
Brennan: You kill your entire party.  
Emily: Wait, Kug is down?  
Gavin: Rage is not really saving me now.  
Murph: Everyone's so fucked.  
Brennan: The ice scatter.  
[cast screaming in horror]  
Ally: What the fuck? No!  
Murph: Absolutely fuck me.  
Ally: Fuck you! Fuck you!  
Kugrash: Santa, are you OK?


End file.
